(keep it civil) What let you down most about TOR?

[TUXs]

In all sincerity, could someone explain the fascination with "fishing" in a Star Wars game? I'm not flaming anyone here, I'm just curious. I don't get it.

 

Also, what music system did LOTRO use that you are missing? I haven't played that.

 

QFE!!!

I can't stand fishing irl - I'd rather play something like "Cabela's Big Game Hunter"...and that game sucked!

[Screaming_Ziva]

End game crafting is what really let me down.

 

When the game was first released, I choose Synthweaving on my main. For the first few months it was great as I was able to craft all kinds of level 49 and 50 armor that people would actually use and I was making decent credits from the GTN. Eventually, most people got into Tionese, Columi, Rakata, etc and my sales plummeted. I can barely give away the level 49 and 50 armor I craft (I've put it into the guild bank and it's sat there for weeks and we have almost 300 members).

 

When I finally started raiding I was really looking forward to the ops schematics but was then disappointed again when looking at the mats required for them and that they were all BoP.

[Goretzu]

In all sincerity, could someone explain the fascination with "fishing" in a Star Wars game? I'm not flaming anyone here, I'm just curious. I don't get it.

 

Also, what music system did LOTRO use that you are missing? I haven't played that.

 

It need not be fishing (although it would be fine too), but what I mean is there is literally NOTHING to do in SWTOR outside of kill mobs and tradeskills (and a few codex unlocks).

 

There's little depth or breadth to the game. Little additions like fishing, or a LOTRO style music system, or being able to sit in chairs, or being able to buy a house and decorate it, or customise your ship or brew your own beer and work on your in-game alcohol tolerance, or some sort of non-combat system al la a SWG entertainer, all add to the game.

 

(LOTROs music system is great, not only can you basically download songs to play in game [on a variaty of instruments], but you can actually play them "live" if you're skilled enough)

[bpphantom]

That the friends I was playing with left.

[bjbm]

Having own both a DD and CE copy, there are so many things in this game disappoints, where does one start?

 

1. Lack of the feeling of "epic-ness". Nothing in this game feels epic. The planets are tiny and stale, basically zoned out into 4-5 minizones, that can be traversed in like 2mins each. Should be called "towns" instead of planets. I remember of disappointed I was when I went to Hoth. Just hundreds of static add-groups of 3-4 clustered all around each area, not moving or anything, just waiting to be slaughtered. I was expecting to be immersed, this game pretty much did the complete opposite.

2. Endgame is severely lacking. To say that this MMO is by far the most easy MMO ever created is an understatement. There are a couple of fun fights, but everything is pretty much destroyed by bugs. Too little DPS...too much DPS...breaks the fights. From the original SOA balls to the latest "oops we forgot some Vorgoth code", its just asinine.

3. Gear progression is terrible. The upgrade from Columi to Rakata is like 3-4 extra stat points in each catagory. Woopie. Rakata to Campaign/BH is the same. Its like they gave up and didn't even try. 3 Tiers and its still the *SAME* set bonus. Really? The fact that you can acquire endgame/highest tier gear by just being barely awake to run the "HM FPs" each day is just insulting. It's like the dev team got together one day in a meeting and asked each other "how can we dumb this game down and make it even easier than Hello Kitty Adventure Island???".

4. Lack of diversity. Nothing in this game supports any diversity. Run around fleet and look at people. Notice how we all "look the same"? Thats because we all. Everyone is a boring colored human with like 5-6 different facial types. No exotic races with exotic perks/racial abilities. Everyone is the same cookie-cutter model.

5. Lack of diversity of gear. Why are there not more, different, EXCITING set bonuses?? Why are there not more uses for crystals? ie slot armor to change looks and diversity. As it stands right now, ONLY Jedi/Sith can fully take advantage of these crystals (in terms of looks). For BH/Agents changing a couple of your shots to something hardly noticeable, just makes any sort of new "epic crystal" pretty meh. Having the set bonus on the armoring was a good start, too bad it seems like it pretty much ended there.

6. Space missions - don't even get me started

7. Terrible Game Engine - 5m load screens on a high end system is just sad. DirectX 9...really? This was awesome 6 yrs ago. Its 2012. Where is DX11? Where is 64bit multicore support? This is what happens when you guys slack, and buy someone else's engine and not develop it inhouse. Why did you not get ID or Epic's engine and adapt it for MMO?

8. Lack of direction. This game honestly feels like its both BW/EA are getting ready to abandon it. F2P is just another nail to the coffin.

 

There are so many more, everyone before me pretty much summed it up. I really wanted to like this game, but every day is just more evidence that things are not going to be improving much, anytime soon. This game needed new content, needed 1.4 like 2 months ago. Myself and my guildies are pretty much waiting for the next "big game" to come out. But the sad thing is, seems like the industry as a whole pretty much lost their way since WOW. Each just copying each other and dumbing down their game to entice more casuals, but at the same time, alienating their core gamers.

[anstalt]

In all sincerity, could someone explain the fascination with "fishing" in a Star Wars game? I'm not flaming anyone here, I'm just curious. I don't get it.

 

Fishing is simply an alternative activity to do whilst in game, something to pass the time. In lotro, it required no skill at all, you pressed a button to cast the line, pressed the same button to reel in when the float went under the water. that was it. In other games it is more skill based.

 

However, the motivation can be strong. Its a bit like stamp collecting: I don't get it, but collecting deeds / titles / fish can be quite compelling and that is why some people enjoy fishing. For others, it is simply a relaxing and enjoyable part of the game. Fishing in final fantasy 11 was always quite fun because you fished up monsters which you then killed and could loot. You also fished up crafting ingrediants.

 

Also, what music system did LOTRO use that you are missing? I haven't played that.

 

In LOTRO, every player could play musical instruments.

 

There were many musical instruments, including drums, bagpipes, lutes etc. These were made by woodworkers (crafted). Every player could learn to play the lute, but had to be taught by a minstrel (healer class) how to play the others.

 

When you equiped a music instructment and typed /play, you could start playing the instrument. Keys 1 -> =, plus F1-F12 iirc, all made different musical notes so you could "create" music. For most people, this meant keymashing, god aweful sounds with the occasional mission impossible theme.

 

HOWEVER, the system allowed you to play music from ABC files. You could basically script music in an ABC file and then play it from within game. It meant you got a whole community of converters / writers who took popular songs and converted it ABC files so you could play them in game.

 

Beyond that, players could do /playsync with other members of their group. So, you would all have the same ABC files, do /playsync and that would allow you to all play at the same time, in-sync. You'd have one person on lute (guitar), one on cowbell (triangle), one on drums (...drums...), one on Theoboe (bass) all playing the same song so it would sound really good, very much like the original song but properly converted to a lotro setting.

 

Because of these features, various social events sprang up to show off your "band". Groups would turn up in matching cosmetic outfits with their instruments and show off their musical prowess. Mostly tho, people just played instruments when waiting for a raid to start, or before/after sparring etc. I never really bothered personally because virtually all of the ABC files i downloaded were rubbish (Imagine Nirvana's Smells like teen spirit played 3x too fast on a lute...).

 

Some links:

 

List of Instruments

 

Blog post about "Weatherstock" - LOTRO musical battle of the bands

 

 

The weatherstock video really shows off the power of the music system. Whilst most of the bands don't sound particularly special, its really impressive just how many people turned up for a social, community organised event based around such a small feature of the game! That sort of stuff just doesn't happen in SW:TOR because we dont have the tools to do it.

 

My favourite events in LOTRO were chicken races. They had a system called "session play" which allowed you to play characters other than your own. Typically, session play was used to take you back in time to witness epic events, for example one of them takes you back to earlier Moria when the dwarves first discover the Balrog. However, one of the options was to play as a level 1 chicken. Normally, you just did some inane quests, but as a community we organised chicken races. We'd all start at the chicken farm in The Shire and then race to some high level area. Races would take 30-45minutes and being level 1, you aggro from miles away and get 1shot by everything so it took some skill to do.

 

Starting lineup for a chicken race (Shire to Rivendell)

[ripster]

1) Combat/skills/talents - Too much is just the standard EQ2/WoW stuff. I hated WoWs talent trees and EQ2s need of having 3 rows of hotkeys.

 

2) I was hoping this game would be more like DDO or even GW with instancing all stories and missions. The mix of 'open world' and class instances leaves both lacking. I guess I think the game should have focused more on Flashpoints for both the solo and group game.

[bobmcbo]

the main thing would be how linear it is. Just because it's story based doesn't mean everyone at the same level in the same faction should always be in the exact same area.

[Goretzu]

 

HOWEVER, the system allowed you to play music from ABC files. You could basically script music in an ABC file and then play it from within game. It meant you got a whole community of converters / writers who took popular songs and converted it ABC files so you could play them in game.

 

 

Playing led zeppelin - Immigrant Song on the Bagpipes could clear an entire zone! (althugh it sounded really good on the Lute )

Edited August 9, 2012 by Goretzu

[Gokkus]

* How fast you got to 50 initially disappointed me.

* The flashpoints as well, I expected more story. How can you not get social points from doing FPs with strangers?

* The limited companion interaction, especially among your companions. They just stand there on my ship, they are far less alive than the KOTOR 'companions'.

* Some of the endgame class stories. Make me feel epic dangit! Why is there usch huge difference in epicness of the stories?

[Cavell]

The weatherstock video really shows off the power of the music system. Whilst most of the bands don't sound particularly special, its really impressive just how many people turned up for a social, community organised event based around such a small feature of the game! That sort of stuff just doesn't happen in SW:TOR because we dont have the tools to do it.

Not to mention something like Weatherstock would kill the engine so hard its developers would feel it.

[DarthTHC]

Initially? Just 2 things:

 

1 That it wasn't D&D-based, like KoTOR. (I had spent the last 2 years playin DDO, too.)

 

2 Discovering at level 11 that (due to #1 above), my Jedi couldn't dual-wield bcause I had rolled the wrong kind of Jedi.

 

There've been other things since then, of course, but thos were te first let-downs.

 

Not to be a jerk.. but imma be a jerk for a minute.

 

So both your issues with the game were a direct result of your own failure to read?

[Celebrus]

What let me down the most was simply the promises of new things, brand new mechanics, new MMO concepts, etc.

 

Yet the grand unveiling simply removed the shade that was covering a rough trace over what WoW has already done. Going much further would just result in my post turning into a hate rant, but needless to say, this game is simply too old already. I feel like I've been playing this same game for 8 years.

[Luno]

My biggest let down was that the end game is gear progression instead of story progression. The latest Flashpoint and Operation are really too hard for me (to the point of just not being fun), but the Black Hole PvE zone is too trivial. This leaves PvP which is just Warzones with no open world content.

[Nrock]

I love how almost every1 body is repeating the same 6 or 7 things (most of which i agree with). You think the devs would wake up and smell the coffee.

[dramafree]

Before I say anything I have no plans on ditching this game anytime soon and with that said the biggest disappointment for me was the difficulty of the operations aside from maybe the soa fight pre-nerfs nitemare was like freddy cougar w/o arms. 80-90% of the ppl that I raided with are now gone because there was nothing left to farm once everyone was all rakata. I really hope in the future the devs create a real nitemare difficulty on all bosses

[Riotus]

Space was by far my biggest let down.

 

The fact that they told us there is a super secret space thing being worked on as far back as the day it was released and we have not seen or heard anything about it is quite upsetting, almost makes me think there never was a SS space thing.

[Pandemoniac]

1) not enough sandbox elements

2) crafting is pointless

3) pvp doesn't exist except in 3 WZs that get old pretty quick

4) no real space combat

[CalonLan]

1. The KOTOR factor... choices made in the story don't have later consequences, you just get the odd email stalker. It's what made KOTOR unique, replayable and fun to play, the lack of that makes the story aspects of this game a run of the mill MMO with better voice acting.

 

2. Light and dark points are utterly pointless.

 

3. Customisation, at character roll is passable with barely enough options. No barber shop, no further customisation options available in game. The gear sets are extremely limited with alot of the same skins in different colours. And consular gear... whoever designed that should be dropped off in the middle of the Atlantic with a pair of water wings.

 

4. Crafting.... was definitely dreamed up one Friday afternoon after a lengthy liquid lunch.

 

5. They overplayed the replay factor. Do the same quests over and over again just with different voice actors Yay!! <SPACEBAR> <SPACEBAR> <SPACEBAR>

 

The game lacks that je ne sais quoi. That something that makes it difficult to put down. I don't know what it is that is missing but the game has no hold on me like other games I've played and loved. This game is like having a girlfriend who is a perfect 10 but she doesn't give head!

Edited August 9, 2012 by CalonLan

[Moondragon]

That BW didn't stick to their guns.

 

It's all gone now, but when they first talked about what they had in mind for this game and what they were working on, it actually sounded solid, unique, and would be fun. Years passed and I actually only followed this game from time to time as I know better then to follow the hype and to just make sure I read in between the lines.

 

And that's when I saw it starting to "fall apart". It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but BW caved. One thing after another. Maybe it was EA pushing its own agenda, wants, and needs? Maybe it was them looking at the project as a whole and going "Crap...we just can't make this work, can we?". Maybe it was the community.

 

At any point, the game went from something promising to...a generic, relatively simplistic MMO. Again, not necessarily a bad thing as it brings in new users (young and old) that are attracted to the franchise. The problem was, that most of their original client base...weren't new users. I'm in my 30's. I've played other mmo's. I grew up with Star Wars IV-VI. I followed Star Wars expanded universe stuff (and REALLY enjoyed Tales of the Jedi which this game is loosely following). I work in this stupid industry. I played SWG up until shortly after Space Combat was released. I am a bit of a SW fanboy, but also a bit of a realist. But I was ready for something more. I was ready for the next step. And, again, initially this game looked to be it. As time wore on, I knew it wasn't going to be and it wasn't.

 

I was hoping that this game would be like a cross between SWG. LotR, FFXI, a smidge of WoW and...well...what's here now. Instead, it's just too generic, is becoming more and more watered down and is loosing touch with what SW is.

 

I still enjoy aspects of this game (as I am playing through all main stories) and enjoy playing as kind of "Man...I just need to relax.", but the bottom line is...it's not the adventure I was hoping it would be.

[boxfetish]

This isn't a "LOL I HATE TOR" Thread, just a general area for people to say what annoyed them or what was disapointing in TOR to them, not a hate thread. We're all disapointed in one way or another about any game, none are perfect. For the record i still play TOR and am enjoying every bit of it, and frankly i don't see why people constantly moan about how crap it is.

 

But, what disapointed me was:

 

1) the inclusion of black colour crystals, these things are ugly as sin, and really should be removed from the game.

 

2) Flashpoints - after Black Talon and Esseles (or however you spell it) They don't have much in terms of story, which i found a little disapointing.

 

3) No group finder at launch - i expected this to be a common thing, aparently i was wrong.

 

4) poor warzone matching, premades being put against pubs isn't the fairest system in the world.

 

5) Money sinks - too many of them

 

so, what disapointed you, from even a little bit, to quite alot, about TOR?

 

Let me preface by saying that I was a beta tester, advance purchased the collector's and have been (so far) paying a sub straight through since Jan.

 

0) PvP! This game should have figured out a way to make ALL PvP world PvP and incorporate the class stories, questing, and heroics into the world PvP (save the pointless arena and battleground pvp for the PvE servers).

 

1) Was uber disappointed that this was going to be a WoW clone all along with KOTOR style voice overs (but that one goes back to long before release). Space PvP (instead of the absolutely ridiculous rails shooter we got). Find myself wishiing that SWTOR would have copied Warhammer instead of WoW if it had to copy a game (at least in terms of how classes/races, questing/leveling, and PvP were implemented).

 

2) Too themepark-y even for a themepark MMO. Was expecting player choices to be much more open ended. Dialogue options should change much more depending on player choices (in and out of dialogue). Was expecting planets to be completely open to exploration with hidden item/squests and many more lore objects, implemented much better than they were. Something more like the warhammer online tome of knowledge.

 

3) Pointless missions and crafting. Could have been so much better. Was also expecting crafted items to be > all else.

 

4) Leveling rate way too fast. I should just barely be able to maintain the proper level for the planet I am on IF I do every single quest and every flashpoint and heroic once.

 

5) Playable races. Huge disappointment. Should have left out Mirialan, Miraluka, Chiss, and Rattataki and included, for example, droid, rodhian, bothan, and trandoshan instead.

 

6) Just not enough fluff. Should be more body types, faces, hairstyles, armor/clothing dyes, much more variation in the armor , speeders, that is available as well. Many more companions to choose from. more variation in player ships, guild starships, player and guild housing/buildings.

 

7) Money sinks. Not enough of them.

 

 

Bottom line. Bioware should have made KOTOR 3 with maybe some sort of innovative 2-16 person coop (or 4-32 person head to head competive mode) and not done an MMO (which they obviously had no clue about) OR they should have made an MMO without KOTOR style voice acting and used that extra $100 million and the corresponding extra development resources to implement every GOOD game feature from other MMORPGs and to release with loads more content.

Edited August 9, 2012 by boxfetish

[Malastare]

#1 : The community. I've largely avoided MMO's because I don't really care for the social aspect. Yet, I have been repeatedly told that the massively-multiplayer aspect is so addictive that people never want to go back to other games. I reluctantly tried SWTOR and found that I liked it... and disliked the one thing I was told was supposed to be the best part. I routinely find players that are selfish, even to the point of purposefully ruining other people's enjoyment just to buff their ego for a moment. Sure, they are the minority, but the problem is that it is passively supported by the majority. This, I feel, is the biggest barrier to the genre. The community that plays MMO seems to enjoy its self-destructive nature.

 

#2 : Not enough character customization. It seems weak, but some additional choices for facial appearances and gear models would add to the replayability of alts.

 

#3 : Overtuned Flashpoints. I will probably rarely play the higher level flashpoints because I have little interest in dealing with the you-must-play-this-way, you-must-wear-this-gear nature of some of them. Furthermore, I don't want to deal with the members of #1 who enjoy ridiculing anyone who doesn't follow the YouTube guide (or the silent majority who let it happen). Sadly the strategy, gear, guide, and elitism are mostly unavoidable because MMO elites demand that high level missions only be possible for people playing like MMO elites.

 

#4 : Few consequences to actions in quest lines. Unlike a lot of people, I recognize the results of quests cannot have huge consequences. However, in things like the class quests, where most encounters are within an instance, it might be nice to see some differences based on past choices.

[MetalHed]

1. That SWG was taken away so that this game could exist.

 

Wouldn't be a let down if it wasn't so far from what was advertised, and you know LucasArts had to recieve a similar pitch. I lost a game that was complex and actually required some skill and knowledge to recieve...THIS? C'mon...the gear grind, RNG, Crafting, need I say more??

[belizar]

Bioware showing incompetence with each patch

 

i wanted this game to do well as it had everything going for it WoW horde was bored looking for somthing new

SW fans were lookig for a new MMO after SWG was shuting down, It could have been on a upward slope of subs not a spiral if they didnt see the $$$$ at xmas and push the game back 5-6 months

 

if the game came out now look what they have to start with as a base

 

5 warzones or more cant remember

12 ? flashpoints

3 ops

more than 1 planet for dailys

LFR

LFD

some performce tweaks that helped some

[AGSThomas]

1. Static Worlds. Nothing has changed to bring these worlds to life. Not only to they not feel Star Warsy but they dont feel like worlds. They feel like isolated zones with speeder hubs. Not only that, the zones are boring and unimaginitve. Most everything thats placed in the world is done so strategically for you to go from one point to the other. I remember back in WoW, my first coming upon the tomb of Uther Lightbringer. I was amazed, I wondered and wondered why it was there. WoWs old continents had so much of that, and it was really great immersion. I dont ever wonder in this game. I honestly thought this was one thing that could be relatively easy to fix. To stealth add little things with every patch. But nothing was ever added.

 

2. Choices Mean Nothing. This one really bothers me actually. No matter what choice I select in my conversations nothing ever makes any difference to my story. Yes, I just spared that Republic Agent for crossing me, so what? My story doesnt ever arch from my decisions. That Agent never comes back to help me, and if I kill him, his friends dont come to hunt me down or anything. The "choice" in this game is so useless that I just kill everyone, regardless of class, cause its more funny seeing them die then it is to have them walk away. Which brings me to..

 

3. Dark and Light Are Pointless. They serve absolutely no purpose. So going down the dark side nothing changes except for the fact that I cant equip a certain type of relic? How come NPCs dont balk at my Dark V Sith Lord? Why does the Jedi Council not feel a distrubance in the force as my Knight chooses every single dark option. Why do I get the title of master when I am marred by Dark Side Corruption? How uncreative can you get? The struggle between dark and light was the very essence of Star Wars. There is no struggle here. Its come to the point where going down the dark side is cooler because you get cool darkside corruption on your face. LAME!!

 

4. The Story Ends. When my story ended on my Sith Warrior for the first through the game I felt like my character was a bonafide Darth. What was I rewarded with when my story ended? My companions didnt talk to me anymore, my story grinded to a halt in that I was forced to just run flashpoints that no one can stomach sitting through the scenes (SPACEBAR!!! SPACEBAR!!!) It seriously left me with a feeling like "OK games over time to restart." If I hadnt played any other MMOs and known the standard fare of gear grinding I would have right then and there. Why have there not been any more class specific missions added to the game like "on your way to your ship someone tries to kill you and you go on this quest line to find out who it was and ends up being somone on the dark council who is now your rival" I dont know, the game at 50 is much more boring than before it and it just seems simple to fix.

 

5. Nothing fun to do at 50. The daily quest grind is not fun. I dont care what anyone says, no one who has done them for longer than a week sits at work (or school) and thinks "man I cant wait to fire up Swtor and do my daily quests!" They are just so incredibly lame. Somehow they have been accepted and I dont know why. How about instead of boring unimaginitive daily quests, you implement some sand box activity for grinding your money. Like make desireable items drop from soloable mobs around the galaxy, then make their drop rate small. Incorporate a little of what diablo does. When I saw a mob in Diablo I couldnt wait to kill it cause it might drop something valuable. Theres entirely too much trash in this game.

 

6. Alt playing is horrible. I thought that maybe with the inception of these character perks that I could level solely through my class missions. Definitely not. The extra XP is marginal at best forcing me to do all but one of all the side quests on the planet just to be at the minimum level for the next planet. After your 5th time through the same side quests its really irritating. Level by dungeons? that might be feasible if I wanted to spend double or triple the time leveling. an average dungeon takes about 30 minutes to complete and gives about 2 bars (with all character perks) So I need to do 5 or 6 dungeons for one level. That's 3 hours per level IF you can get back to back queues and every dungeon runs smoothly. 9 times out of 10 it doesnt so your looking at closer to 6 hours per level if your just doing dungeons. I dont have any sort of ideas how one would fix this (to my liking, anyway.)

 

7. Space Missions. Obviously they suck after the 100th time. Its the feeling of the overwhelming majority. The thing is, they promised us a greatly expanded space game. Not only did they never deliver but it seems to have died along with the jobs of all the developers. How are those guild capitial ships coming Bioware?

 

8. Loading Screens. Need I say more?

 

People like to complain about the UI or sitting/swimming, etc.. I really dont have a gripe with those things, I have a gripe about the replayability of this game being about as fun as a root canal. This game can be saved in my opinion. Serious work is needed and its going in the very wrong direction. Stop creating content people blow through in a day and then complain about the day after and start working on ways we can enjoy ourselves in this huge galaxy you have created. Get your team to start thinking up more star warsy things to do, cause at this time, it doesnt feel like it at all.

 

-Extremely Dissapointed Star Wars and MMO Fan