Khevar Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Oh really? So when I jump on my mid 30's tank and queue and get no pop for a while then I pop right on over to my mid 30's healer and queue and still no pop, that's a role distribution issue? This is on a destination server, so it's not a (single-server) population problem. This is a problem that X-LFG would solve. Yah, yah, I know... "community", whatever that means (I've seen it defined as harassing players who make you cry, so yay?). Ignore works. So does thicker skin. So does understanding that the percentage of idiots won't change; only the frequency with which you see them (and the good ones) because you'll get more groups, faster. My healer queue pops < 3 minutes, my dps takes up to 90 minutes. And this when there are 150-200 on the fleet. A friend of mine has a tank main, and her queue times are either instant or < 3 minutes. And others in my guild have all reported similar times. It's a fair bet that a lot more players are dps than tanks/healers. That said, these are my experiences for HMFP at 50, not at 30. I haven't spent a lot of time trying the group finder at lower levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kavu Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Not that you have bad ideas. But if you cannot understand that the reason behind LFG not popping instantly is NOT a lack of player but a bad distribution of Tank/Heals/DPS and that cross server LFG would change nothing about it, then I'm much much less inclined to take your other ideas seriously. I think the biggest reason, at least at lower levels , for low numbers using the LFG is the annoyance of being returned to the fleet after every FP. this was an issue in previous MMO's and it presists here. people don't want to be locked into either column A or column B. I know you can unlock a QT to certain planets through legacy but its a terrible substitute. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImmortalAlien Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 During server downtime, I thought about the state that this game is in and what can be done to fix it... here are my thoughts... - The leveling path is very, very narrow: fighting mobs 3-4 levels higher then you is pretty much impossible, unlike in other games. The result is that if you are 25 and your friend is 22, he can't help you out at all. - The planet-levels are very, very small: planets are only good for 3-4-5 levels, so very few people are together on a planet, start worlds aside. These two aren't a problem if two people actually, ya know, level together. You can also deal with mobs up to 4 levels higher than you. The difficulty is higher, but it's possible. The level 22 and 25 example is actually not that bad assuming both still need to do Nar Shaddaa. But yes, in the end, if someone you're leveling with decides to play enough of the game to the point that they surpass you by a wide margin, then they either have to wait for you to catch up or stop leveling with you entirely. - There is no cross-planet chat: there may be 500 people online at one server, but you can not talk to them, because they are on different planets. Custom channels and advertising these custom channels makes this irrelevant. All of the destination servers should have a custom channel for certain activities that can be seen on any planet, assuming the server has the bare bones of a social community. - The lack of cross-server group-finder: there may be 100 other players wanting to do a FP, but I don't see them, cause there is no cross-server grouping. Cross-server LFG is not required, and BW seems to be leaning against cross-server for the foreseeable future. It also won't fix the issues of tanks/healers instantly getting groups while DPS have to wait for several minutes for a group. - Needless to say, fixing the bugs in the current group finder would be highly desirable as well. Yes, LFG is very robust and needs improvements. There are tons of other bugs and glitches that need to be fixed, though, that have all been turning players away. - Make it possible to queue for a group from an alt. Join a guild or the custom LFG channel of your server. Other than that, such functionality addition will most likely not come in the foreseeable future and is not required. - Fix the crafting system!!! Some things are broken, some things are only perceived to be broken. The utility of each crafting skill needs improvement. Chances for crits are, despite what unlucky people claim, *not* broken. - Have a clearer end-game path... There's no right path for what to do in the endgame for either PVP or PVE. You're not required to do Daily runs anymore. You're not required to use HM FP's to gear up for SM Operations. You're not required to have any endgame gear for HM FP's. You're not required to even do the endgame. Endgame needs more content and variety, actually. - Test better. The Launcher lets you pick the environment... just because. I'm actually not sure why this was changed, yet it's not an important issue. It doesn't bother me, and it only takes an extra mouse click while logging in, and it's not like it's trying to devour my soul like the standard EULA's of most video game publishers. When the PTS is re-enabled, you will then see the Public-Test Server be available to choose as an environment. As more expansions are made for SWTOR, it's also possible that Legacy servers akin to Everquest's design might be added, which you can choose to activate by picking your environment. I've also heard an idea from a guildmate that Origin may be turned into something akin to the SWTOR Launcher, where players input their login information, pick the game they want to play, and then instantly launch it. There's also the fact that developers and paid testers use the environment tab to choose their own private test servers, so it helps those in the know. - Make the forums accessible when servers are down. I don't like it either. Yet in the end, a lot of what you claim is the problem for SWTOR is what *you* don't like, and other players (including me) may not sympathize with the points you bring up. In fact, most of your points are either not problems or not important problems. What seems to have been the major causes of SWTOR being lackluster was: - Low server population and the inability to do anything about it other than reroll (Fixed by the server transfers and impending server merges) - PVP unbalance up the wazoo makes some classes and specs nonviable for competitive play - Not a lot of PVE, yet, and the first two operations were pretty meh, and lots of competent guilds have cleared everything available - Very few functionality features that are considered standard for MMO's - Server performance seemingly degrading post server transfers - Bugs, some game-breaking, everywhere with several major ones ignored for long periods of time (Denova instance depopulation issues, PVP dead at respawn bug) - General lack of communication of the developer's goals and ideas as well as the shift to major updates only being done for the next 1.X patch rather than the weekly minor balancing and fixing they had at launch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craftamancer Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 And this is key. I have played a healer for over 10 years in MMORPGs. We are losing community and making games too solo friendly. We make it relatively easy for players to escape reputations and we "protect" people from other players actions by over policing games. We make it ways for people to "progress" but this just means they do so at the expense of forming relationships they may need later on to do content. Players are equally to blame because they cant be arsed to try and make friends. Allowing people to dual spec isnt the answer. You need dedicated healers and tanks that know their craft. Same for DPS. I agree with everything but the last line. Dual Spec promotes much faster queuing via players using their off-spec. Does this result in some more bad tanks and healers showing up in your pug? Sure. But it also causes a lot of new players to gain a better understanding of the difficulties experienced by tanks and healers, and to then play their dps character smarter. Some of those dps decide to become healers/tanks, thus further reducing the shortage. Those who don't should at least have learned enough to make your job as a healer that much easier the next time they wind up in a group with you as a dps. Finally, all of those players who have thousands of hours healing and tanking in other games but decided to take a break from it... all those exceptionally skilled healers and tanks... will now queue up as such in order to avoid waiting. Dual spec is a fantastic solution to this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mavsynchroid Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 It's not a mess. It doesn't need fixing. Go play a different game if you don't like it. So sick of these threads about people whining how SWTOR doesn't fit what they PERSONALLY want in a game. Go find a game that does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mothear Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 (edited) Actually, on most of my characters now, my crafting is equal to my level, if not ahead of my level. My shooters have always had blue gun barrels waiting for them. This is totally true. I love armormech because when you get to 50 you can basically craft yourself into either HM fp or SM Ops with 2 pieces of rakata and the rest of your armor ilvl 126. It's taken me a while but I am now almost in a position to craft any ilvl 126 piece I may require as soon as I am at 50 for both medium and heavy armor. I assume synthweaving is the same. Alternatively cybertech/artifice and running a few days of dailies and you can fully mod out your gear to advanced level 50 standard. The problem is is that too many people believe they have a right to enter HM/Ops with their blue lvl 40-45's and complain when they get kicked or fail. There is no excuse but instead of a bit of prep they say crafting sucks. What do you want out of crafting anyway Op? - best in slot gear without running the hardest Ops - dream on. Edited July 24, 2012 by mothear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newyankalt Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 People are still posting on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yogol Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) What do you want out of crafting anyway Op? - best in slot gear without running the hardest Ops - dream on. No, not at all. Like I posted, ''- make each skill usefull, like have each skill make one consumable (amunition, potions, relics, stims, meds, scrolls, food, drinks, whatever you wanne call it''. Currently in the game, any crafted gear is mainly for leveling characters below 50. Once you are 50 and have tier 1 gear, there is nothing that crafters can do for you anymore (with the exception of therecently-added augments). This makes crafting much, much less usefull then it can be. People are still posting on this. And you're one of them :-) By the way... if you post cynical remarks like that, at least make sure that your signature doesn't contain any spelling errors! Edited July 25, 2012 by Yogol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yogol Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) I do not think that is a lack of testing Well, I disagree... as you can see today, they need to repatch AGAIN on thursday because they somehow managed to break AGAIN something with their thuesday patch... Even the biggest fanbois should be able to admit that this is NOT ''standard MMO practice'', but due to improper testing. Edited July 25, 2012 by Yogol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gunnerjoe Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) I would also add that they need to make the planet story quests better, you fly down to the planet and its the same thing every time, its "we are under attack we need help " or "we are attacking this, help us." It would be nice to see planets have an intro to them for example, when you first get on the planet, the planet is not under attack and you help people prepair for the attack or you are on a peaceful planet sorta like a Naboo type planet and then suddenly the imps ambush instead of "welcome go kill some imps." When you change planets you always seem to show up when the fighting is already going on. Its sorta like starting a movie right in the middle, when I am rushed into a story, I dont get any emotional attachment to any of the characters on the planet and it makes me not care at all (which leads to me spacebaring everything.) It would be cool is if I was sent to a planet just to send supplies or whatever and then suddenly the planet gets ambushed and that leads to me having to defend the people, that would make me more attached to the characters on the planet and would aid the leveling experience. Honestly, if there is no building of plot I could care less if virtual characters get infected by the rakghoul plague, or if thousands of prisoners escape. Bioware needs to add a better beginning, middle, and end to every planet. Thrusting me straight into the fight does me no good at all and makes leveling boring. If they add better planet intro's then leveling would be a lot more fun. Edited July 25, 2012 by gunnerjoe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mothear Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 It would be nice to see planets have an intro to them for example, when you first get on the planet, the planet is not under attack and you help people prepair for the attack or you are on a peaceful planet sorta like a Naboo type planet and then suddenly the imps ambush. Sounds interesting but the naysayers would then be like 'Man this is Star WARS where's the freakin' war? Bioware you suck' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stenrik Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) Some of these ideas are rather stupid. Cross planet chat I don't want people always spamming the chat. Planets should also be certain level who needs 50s ord mantel ruining the game for the starting people. Chats can be turned off though. Maybe cross-planet could be turned off by DEFAULT so that noobs don't see it. Or limit cross-planet from lowbie worlds, maybe start it with Nar Shaddaa or something. I happen to think it's a good idea though. So many people are on alts, but might hop onto their mains if they found out there was a world PVP ops group going on, or world boss, or even just someone recruiting for a HM raid. I sure would like to know about things like this happening when I've got an alt stuck on Alderaan. Edited July 25, 2012 by Stenrik Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spatology Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) I would also add that they need to make the planet story quests better, you fly down to the planet and its the same thing every time, its "we are under attack we need help " or "we are attacking this, help us." It would be nice to see planets have an intro to them for example, when you first get on the planet, the planet is not under attack and you help people prepair for the attack or you are on a peaceful planet sorta like a Naboo type planet and then suddenly the imps ambush instead of "welcome go kill some imps." When you change planets you always seem to show up when the fighting is already going on. Its sorta like starting a movie right in the middle, when I am rushed into a story, I dont get any emotional attachment to any of the characters on the planet and it makes me not care at all (which leads to me spacebaring everything.) It would be cool is if I was sent to a planet just to send supplies or whatever and then suddenly the planet gets ambushed and that leads to me having to defend the people, that would make me more attached to the characters on the planet and would aid the leveling experience. Honestly, if there is no building of plot I could care less if virtual characters get infected by the rakghoul plague, or if thousands of prisoners escape. Bioware needs to add a better beginning, middle, and end to every planet. Thrusting me straight into the fight does me no good at all and makes leveling boring. If they add better planet intro's then leveling would be a lot more fun. Maybe if there where some paragraphs or valid opinions I would care. The fact that you can't pick up on the story that evolves on each planet and what goals are nessesary is your own fault. All of the planets involve fighting the imperials because that is the main focus of this game atm. Even the prison breaks on Belsavis, Rhakghoul plagues on Taris, and Pirates on hoth, or dipolomatic events on voss involve the Empire at some point. We are opposeing factions fighting over the galaxy. Edited July 25, 2012 by Spatology Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicKat Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 In my opinion it isn't a mess but it doesn't live up to it's potential. One thing I think could drastically improve this game is... Make it harder! It's just too easy. Levelling up is like one long tutorial with the odd tough fight thrown into the mix. This gives players no reason to group with or even really interact with any other players. Levelling is easier alone than in a group. It is a very bad idea to make an MMO as a game that heavily favors solo play. It is fine to make solo play a viable option but to focus on it is damaging to so many facets of what make MMO's endure. Action oriented games get old fast and they don't age well. Newer ones have more bells and whistles and the fanbase tends to go to the newest with the most bells and whistles. If you're not a monster hit out of the box, you never will be. The status quo doesn't seem to be a blockbuster hit. Making it easier is probably impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ensquire Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 I think if you up the ante and made it feel more like an mmo, by introducing 30 man raids and 60 man pvp events you might be able to call this an MMO, right now this game is a single player game with multi-player elements Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ensquire Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 (edited) Make it harder! You know there not, because with all the legacy perks the game becomes easier Edited July 25, 2012 by Ensquire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CosmicKat Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 Make it harder! You know there not, because with all the legacy perks the game becomes easier I'm talking more in the longterm. Eveything they are doing now has likely been in the pipe since long before release. Any real changes to the difficulty would take a long time to design, test, and implement. But yeah, I don't think there is much chance of them doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solar_Breeze Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 [quote=Yogol;4903841 - Test better. Sure, this is an MMO and it's easy to miss bugs... but don't tell me that the launcher is hard to test... how is it possible that you ever went live with the patcher that makes you pick your envirenoment? Lack of testing. It's like that for weeks now: every player that logs on to the game and has to select the environment sees immediatly: this is not been tested. Think what bugs like that do to your reputation... this is a small but everyone sees them... for weeks now... ! Just wanted to point out here that this issue was more than likely picked up by QA. Its not a QA's job to fix the issue only to report it. It will then get prioritized and measured against impact and severity. For instance - one extra click on a launcher compared to an item going missing for all characters (matrix cubes for instance). I know which one I would want fixed urgently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gokkus Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 (edited) - The leveling path is very, very narrow: fighting mobs 3-4 levels higher then you is pretty much impossible, unlike in other games. The result is that if you are 25 and your friend is 22, he can't help you out at all. You might not be able to do heroics many levels above yours but you can definitely help someone with normal quests 3 levels above. I aided someone with a class quest boss fight not too long ago being 4 levels lower and it made it almost too easy. - The planet-levels are very, very small: planets are only good for 3-4-5 levels, so very few people are together on a planet, start worlds aside. Thats what you sacrifice for diversity. You rather have half the planets with twice the people? Because I dont. - Make it possible to queue for a group from an alt. How would that work though, you couldnt accept the invite with the wrong character. That must be hell to implement. - Have a clearer end-game path... - Test better. - Make the forums accessible when servers are down. These I agree with. I doubt this is the way to revive the game though. I dont think this would make unsubbed people come back or sway people to buy SWTOR after all. Some of these points are more personal preference so those dont really count. Edited July 26, 2012 by Gokkus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uziforyou Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 Some of these ideas are rather stupid. Cross planet chat I don't want people always spamming the chat. Planets should also be certain level who needs 50s ord mantel ruining the game for the starting people. /sigh............ Why can't people be cordial in their responses? No wonder most players shun these forums. Just because you disagree with something it a post doesn't make it "stupid". Good grief people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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