Gentlemen, I present to you…THE ULTIMATE POST.

[mourasantos]

My point being there would need to be millions of units. So best to have it instanced. You have a variety of houses to pick from, but 50k people could pick house type C for instance and would all use the same entrance.

 

Millions? If only...

That would mean this game would be doing a lot better than it is right now

[BlueDestiny]

About the only thing we agree are Majors, are the topic of Companions being underutilized, and that I'd attribute more fundamentally to a failure of being a Story Driven Game that TOR touted to be (and isn't).

 

The real fundamentals that are wrong with TOR, are found in the Definitive Issues thread, per below:

[mourasantos]

About the only thing we agree are Majors, are the topic of Companions being underutilized, and that I'd attribute more fundamentally to a failure of being a Story Driven Game that TOR touted to be (and isn't).

 

The real fundamentals that are wrong with TOR, are found in the Definitive Issues thread, per below:

I'm not sure I follow...

[Legendoom]

Sorry, but I loathe your viewpoint on being forced to PvP. MMO's should never force anybody to do anything they don't want to do. That's how you lose subscribers and that's how a game goes underwater. I quit this game in April because I was forced to quest and quest the same missions over and over, and it became an awful grind. Now, with the help of getting into warzones that I was paranoid of trying before, and the implementation of the group finder, I can get a lot more EXP and I can afford to skip some of the quests that I've done three or four times on different characters and focus more on my class story; which is what I care about.

 

I like your Adaptive Conversation viewpoint, but given how much of this game's budget was poured into the voice acting, and the subscriber numbers that Bioware brings in revenue from, this is pretty much unfeasible.

 

Cantina idea? Not bad, but the of the characters in my legacy, only four out of eight of them are all alive at the same time. So they would be the only ones willing to talk together, and what of someone who has a lineage that only has one person alive at any given time? I'm also not sure how you would implement that. Seems like more trouble then it's worth.

 

I primarily play a Bounty Hunter, so I payed attention to your Classes section. I would support something like this where I didn't have to hunt down a player character; perhaps I could do an NPC if I wanted an easier (or harder) challenge. But again, I hate being forced to participate in things, so if it's strictly PvP I wouldn't like that.

 

Your Jedi Temple thing? Have at it, seems easy enough to implement. Don't know how the Empire would get at it, though. Maybe stick one in the Sith Academy too?

 

The Old Hermit idea is iffy. I guess if you only do it once a month it isn't too bad so the bar of competition stays at the level of gear that everyone can obtain. But what I'm worried about is that people are ******es. And they will get better and better at finding the Hermit every month, and will camp him so that nobody else can match their uber-1337 DPS numbers. If you made this guy sell mounts, pets or otherwise novelty items, it wouldn't be so bad.

 

I don't really get what you're saying about these flashpoint conversation-stoppers. Maybe it's just me, but it seems overly complex to both writers and players to do all this just for flashpoints. I think the real story of the game is in the class stories. I honestly did not get into the flashpoint stories that much; they're short and they have limited effect. While on my individual classes, I felt like I had an effect on all of the galaxy.

 

Player Housing? WoW's been barking up that tree for years. Runescape has done it pretty well, but honestly I like the idea of just allowing us to customize our ships more. We're men of action; and my Bounty Hunter is far more likely to get to a fleeing target faster in a ship then if he has to leave his apartment, get to the spaceport and then fly in a ship. Also, you'd have to fly back to the capital planet to get back to your house, whereas in a ship it's always on the planet you're on.

 

Speeder idea? NO, NO and NO. I was around in Patch 1.1 in WoW, when the Tauren didn't have mounts and instead had their racial ability of Plainsrunning. The problem with that was that it took 10 seconds to accelerate to full speed, and if you were hit, you became dazed, the ability was toggled off and had to re-accelerate once you finished killing what dismounted you. If you get knocked off your speeder, it takes a while to re-accelerate and you lose an awful lot of time, and I know for a fact, most players would HATE that.

 

The Sprint thing is already implemented. Your idea would simply postpone it for 35 levels or so, after a character gets to level 30 and unlocks their legacy, and then however long it takes them to reach legacy level 1.

 

Holoterminal idea? I agree. I mostly don't notice that anymore, but it seems easy to fix and would put some people at ease. Do it.

 

I guess I half-agree with you on your point about capital cities. Coruscant and Dromund Kaas don't seem very 'capital' at all, I agree. But at the same time, the Fleet is the Fleet because it's a place where everyone gathers, and if you seperate that, then you'll have a gathering of all the 50's on coruscant, unable to talk with other level 50's who are leveling their other characters. It's just more segregation. Anyway, most new players spend very little time on the Fleet. They get their class quests and go right on to the next planet. And they spend very little time on the Fleet while leveling, unless they're at the end of their act or they want to do a flashpoint, which is mostly bypassed because of the group finder anyway.

 

Huttball? No thanks. I like it where it is. Seems just as warlike as Alderaan or Novare Coast to me, and it's much more fun then any other warzone except maybe Voidstar. It's very small and very chaotic, which is what I and many others love.

 

I don't think that a whole lot of players are obsessed with filling their codex, much less what's in it. I guess writing entries might entice some players to do it, but I don't think so. If ****** loot doesn't motivate people, not a lot will.

 

As for your group finder idea, I can't think of a worse solution to the current problems. Scrap the whole thing? Even making people do it once is a huge pain in the ***. I played WoW for over five years before a group finder was introduced, and I've lost countless hours sitting in Trade chat spamming for a tank or healer. It's so unbridledly painful that I can't even describe it. People like the convenience of the group finder because nobody likes to spam Fleet chat with group messages; it's one of the least entertaining things in the game.

 

I don't get what you're saying about NPCs. I really don't care about four republic soldiers who are all together in a group; would you prefer to see them just all around the world willy-nilly? That wouldn't make any sense at all. Soldiers rarely split up; they always function as a fighting force and not independently (with the exception of Havoc Squad, obviously). As for the NPCs movement, yeah, I guess it's stiffy, but that is by design. MMO's are supposed to be accessible to nearly everyone, because almost everyone owns a computer. If you give all the characters in game amazing models, emotes and visual upgrades, how well do you think that's going to go over for the people playing on a 2008 Dell machine? Upgrading graphics makes it worse for people with low-level graphics cards. I'm not thrilled with the emotes we have, and I admit we could definitely use more facial expression on the NPCs and players alike, but it's just not a good idea to screw over players with older computers or graphics cards.

 

Your travel idea is okay. But I've played multiple MMO's, and due to complaints from players, they almost always end up sticking them in a more convienient location because people just get sick of trekking out there after a while. WoW did it with Battlegrounds, instead implementing Battlemasters and then after people got too lazy for that, the PvP finder. You used to have to go out into the world to find a battleground's portal then talk to the person there to queue for the battleground. And it sucked beyond all measure.

 

I hate to reference WoW again, but your mass-server events is asking for trouble. During the opening of the Gates of Ahn-Quiraj, the servers crashed consistently, people ran raids day and night, and overall it was just a massive cluster****. Some people loved it, others hated it. I personally didn't like it that much. Now granted, that was years ago, and I'm sure server stability is much better now. But still, implementing stuff like that is very, very hard on the game and often is more trouble then it's worth.

 

Sound? Again, meh. Most games have halfway decent background audio, and I don't know a whole lot with sounds attached to jumping. I guess if it's not too expensive, go for it. I mostly turn off my audio when I'm not doing a new quest that I want to hear the dialogue to, but that's just me.

 

U.I.. I agree wholeheartedly. I really do. I miss the default UI we had before 1.2. I got over it, but mainly I really, really don't like that the missions tab is not in the exact corner anymore. I can do that with the UI customization, but if I do, if I have more then a couple quests, they go over my actionbars, which annoys the hell out of me. If they'd just allow us to change that and a couple other things you'd mentioned, I'd be happy.

 

Voice alterations I like. I very much like that. If they could give us some editing tools, even fairly basic ones, for our voices, I'd like that a lot. I like the current character voices (maybe with the exception of the male Jedi Consular. It's almost impossible to find a face-voice match for that one!), but it would be nice to have the option of switching them up a little.

 

Anyway. That's all I got.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Legendoom
Updated for NPC Section

[Xenith]

I have a dream! That one day SWTOR will look something like this:

 

ADAPTIVE CONVERSATION SYSTEM

 

Guys, please...get it right. It's not about adding MORE story, it's about making the existing story more immersive, enthralling. Quality over quantity, always.

 

But how...?

 

Here's one way: program a mechanism that can learn your personality according to your conversation choices. Example. When an alien approaches your character with yet another meaningless and monotonous task (aka side-quests) the conversation wheel gives you, as always, three options to choose from.

 

1. Sure, I may be interested.

2. What's in it for me?

3. Stay away from me, alien.

 

Let's assume you chose the third option. Now that the system has learned of your xenophobic proclivities, your next conversation will adapt accordingly and ensure you're given a set of suitably disparaging options to choose from the next time an alien approaches you.

 

1. What do you want.

2. Oh great, a T'wilek.

3. Die, you alien scum!

 

The greatest benefit of implementing a system of this sort would be the immense contribution it would provide in terms of building a sense of individuality for players, to the notion that their characters have their own personalities, unique to themselves and no one else. This added appeal would likely draw the curiosity of new players, the kind of players this game failed to captivate so resoundingly—the non-MMO'ers, the casuals, the devout KOTOR fans who gave it a shot, but ultimately backed out because they felt it didn't live up to its franchise—in short, the guys Bioware should really be gunning for. Of course I realize this would require an enormous expenditure, both in terms of resources and finances, but in my opinion it would be a much more sound investment than the alternative, which is to continue saturating players with additional story content that, regardless of how captivating and well-written it may be, will ultimately feel increasingly derivative and even preposterous in the long-run.

 

Stay tuned, I'll flesh out this idea some more in the future.

 

 

CANTINAS

 

What if there were an instanced area inside all cantinas where you could hang out with the rest of the characters in your Legacy? You might even exchange a few words with them, the tone of their responses would be determined by their respective alignments, as well as the relationship you chose to assign them with: son, sibling, etc... Perhaps a barroom brawl might even break out between you and whoever you've assigned as your rival. Think of the possibilities.

 

 

CLASSES

 

Apart from combat based abilities there is no distinction between all of the different available classes to differentiate them from each other.

 

SOLUTION: obvious really, though pretty hard to implement: make each class unique unto itself. I'll start with the

 

BOUNTY HUNTER class.

 

You go to Nar Shadaa to place a a bounty on a rival player. The cost for doing this should be prohibitive enough to avoid tomfoolery (read: everyone and their mother has a bounty placed on their heads). As soon as the BH picks it up the target in question is flagged, a fact to which he will remain oblivious to just so long as he remains in a safe zone (the fleet). However, the moment the target lands on a contested planet a "kill clock" is initiated. Once this clock is triggered, the target is grounded to the planet and now has a set amount of time to avoid almost certain doom at the hands of his relentless pursuer, who has also been alerted to his target's unfortunate galactic meanderings: "Warning! Target spotted on Coruscant!"...or something to that effect...

 

 

 

I understand your concern. I think the solution lies in adding an incentive for the player who's been marked with a Bounty to want to engage in the old cat-and-mouse game with the creation of an achievement system of sorts. You people seem to like gear, so lets keep it simple and stay along those lines. Say the targeted player manages to avoid the bounty hunter long enough for the kill clock to run out; he is then attributed with a title—"wily", for instance—that allows him to unlock access to a certain type of gear. Now consider he manages to escape yet again; now he's been attributed with the title of "sneaky", which in turn will allow him to buy tier 2 gear of the same achievement ladder. And so on...

 

WILY (escaped 1 Bounty)

 

The tier 1 gear this title unlocks includes a full armor set. Nothing fancy of course (more like rags, really), but unique-looking enough to be coveted by most players. What's really gonna steal the show though are the frag mines which will be made available to the player, the first of what will be a long-list of items used as counter-measures to Bounty Hunters. These babies can be real show-stealers If used intelligently (in other words, if you place them correctly and at the right time), often catching overzealous BH unawares.

 

Tier 2: "Sneaky"

Tier 3: "Illusive"

Tier 4: "Stealth Master"

Tier 5: "Escape Artist"

... Something along these lines. Get ready for some cool ***, ninja-style gear!

 

 

 

Good point. The solution, I think, lies in reverting the previous proposition, where instead of being awarded with a positive title (and the gear it gives you access to) you're penalized with a loss of experience points and tagged with increasingly negative-sounding titles—"Coward", for instance—the more often you do it.

 

- Witless

- Coward

- Chicken

- Spineless

 

...and so on...

 

In an ideal (mmo)world the attribution of each of these negative titles would be clearly reflected in your character somehow. For instance, for the Coward title, whenever one crossed paths with another player of higher level and stats an emote would be automatically triggered, forcing one to shiver and cower in front of everyone. Ambitious, I know, but potentially fun as all hell...

 

 

 

The manner in which Bounty Hunters track you down would depend on a number of variables, chiefly amongst which would be the gear they have gained access to. Regardless, all BH's would have at their disposal the same baseline equipment to start with—a tracking device that allows them to pinpoint your general location on a broad radius. What I didn't mention before was that, like his prey, the Bounty Hunter has his own achievement ladder, too. I'm not going to get into what it would look like just yet, but suffice it to say the higher up the BH crawls up this ladder, the more precise his hunting tools become. In the early stages his tracking device has a very broad radius, making his job that much harder. At higher levels, however, the BH is able to gain access to gear with a much better, tighter scope, a tracking device that's able to pinpoint his target's location with much more precision. This is of course affected by his prey's own position in the achievement ladder. For instance, if his target has achieved the rank of "Escape Artist", he will have plenty of counter-measures at his disposal to throw off the Bounty Hunter from his path. I'll get into all of this later....

 

*whew*

 

Alright, this is a work in progress. I'll come back to this and the other classes later.

 

 

COMBAT SYSTEM

 

The good old stats-centric, gear-based, mashing-numbers-on-a-keyboard approach to combat continues to plague the majority of MMOs out there. Unfortunately, SWTOR is no exception. Bioware should have made the most of the opportunity which having a massive IP in their hands such as Star Wars afforded them (essentially guaranteeing them a successful launch) by breaking away from the mold to do something truly innovative: implement a more intuitive, skill-based combat system.

 

Of course I'm not suggesting re-working the combat system in this manner is a priority for Bioware at such a late stage of the game. It would involve going back to the drawing board and a tremendous amount of resources they simply cannot afford at the moment. However, I maintain that the inclusion of this outmoded, even archaic system was its single gravest mistake, one from which they may never quite recover.

 

You know what, though? I could go on and on about my feelings concerning this issue, but the truth of the matter is there's someone who has already addressed all of my concerns and laid them out in a much more elegant manner than I ever could. Rather than bore you then, I'll simply provide you with the link to his article HERE.

 

Read it. Trust me, it's worth it.

 

 

COMPANIONS

 

Companions have many faults at the moment. Every time you click on them they have no more than couple of stock-phrases that quickly grow stale, at times even outright annoying. There is also a lack of interaction between them.

 

Give companions more speaking lines, and make sure these are appropriate to the surrounding environment. You don't have to go too crazy, keep it simple; if on Tatooine, have them comment on the blistering heat. Also, give us sporadic cut-scene on-ship where the companions are seen interacting with each other. Take companion affection into account in these scenarios. For instance, if your affection with Risha is high enough, and if Akavii Spaar's is equally high, then perhaps a "lover's feud" could be triggered the next time you step into your ship.

 

Finally, another issue with companions pertains to how their affection works. It’s appropriate that certain conversation choices should either please or displease whichever companion I’ve chosen to accompany me on my questing, but it makes little sense to see this exact same dynamic play out with everyone else I’ve left back at my ship.

 

From a technical perspective, it’s only a minor annoyance. Yet it’s the kind of thing that’s not only immersion-breaking (what are they, telepathic?), but also outright disruptive from a role-player’s perspective. Who’s to say that I don’t want to play as some two-faced sycophant who acts all squeaky-clean and nice in front of some of the more virtuous companions, only to reveal his true dark side in front of those more open to it?

 

 

EMOTES

 

The emote system is archaic. Sound is practically non-existent, the range of emotions available to our characters severely limited and, worse still, there are several emote commands which often repeat, making them interchangeable with one another despite their descriptive distinction.

 

SOLUTION: The Mayan Apocalypse is around the corner, how about taking advantage of some of the tools modern technology affords us? I heard something called Kinect is around... I trust you to connect the dots. SOE seems to have already done it with EVERQUEST II.

 

EDIT: It seems as if 1.4 has taken a minor step in the right direction as respects to the emote system. Bravo Bioware! Keep at it.

 

 

JEDI TEMPLE

 

So there's a cool little feature available right here on this website, a series of videos in which Jedi Master Marka Ragnos, or whatever, provides a brief summary of the major galactic events that took place during a wide stretch of time. Now, why isn't this integrated into the game proper? It seems as if it would fit right at home in the Jedi Archives on Tython. Just a fun little feature to keep players entertained, and help give the planet itself some character.

 

 

THE OLD HERMIT

 

I have this kooky idea that I think would function as a great incentive for exploration if it were ever implemented, an event of sorts that would only happen once a month, in which developers would place a vendor in some extremely off-the-beaten-path locale, for the most intrepid players to find. The lure would be that this vendor would sell unique, high-level stats items that would be coveted by all. Too bad only one player per server can find it each month. You could then post the lucky winners on this website.

 

 

FLASHPOINTS

 

Because their story elements are static right now FP's eventually become stale once you've completed them several times, and it doesn't take very long for experienced players to lose patience with newbies running it for the first time ever. This has been the cause for an increasingly wide-spread phenomenon, the SPACEBAR-feud. There are several ways to circumvent this problem, the easiest of which involves churning out MORE flashpoints. However, this not only the costliest of the solutions, it's also the most short-sighted one. The real key is to make the cutscenes found in EXISTING flashpoints as dynamic as possible. How, you ask?¹

 

Imagine a scenario where, after reaching a certain amount of social points, you're able to unlock a new ability which allows you to interrupt the normal flow of conversation by performing a suitably show-stopping action, something similar to the Paragon/Renegade system Bioware introduced in Mass Effect 2 (for the sake of convenience, we'll call this ability the SHOW-STOPPER from now on).

 

 

 

The answer is yes in both cases. Consulars would have FORCE PERSUASION, Smugglers would use SMUGGLER'S CHARM, Sith Inquisitors would rely on MIND DOMINATION, Jedi Knights would rock their JEDI MIND TRICKS, Troopers might use, say, SOLDIER'S RESOLVE, and so on...The only caveat would be that, by virtue of their lore, the Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor classes would not be required to reach a certain level of Social Points in order to unlock the SHOW-STOPPER, they would have it available to them always, from the get-go.

 

 

 

Not if other classes are also given their own exclusive attributes. Not if you provide players with similarly enticing reasons for rolling them. You know the spiel: Smugglers would Smuggle, Bounty Hunters would Bounty Hunt, Imperial Agents would infiltrate the opposite faction in disguise, etc... The idea would be for this system to be developed as a sort of mini-game. By choosing either the Light-side (Paragon) or Dark-side (Renegade) options the system would be rolling the dice—just the same as it would do for the other standard conversation rolls—except that in this case if the roll was lost, you would then not only lose a (very) small amount of Social Points, but also be locked out from all future interactions for that particular flashpoint, unable to take part in any of the conversations. But, should you manage to win the roll, the upshot would be that you would then receive a substantial social points bonus in addition to performing the aforementioned kick-*** feat. The higher your social points level, the more likely you would be to win these rolls.

 

 

 

Since it's the first and most widely-known Flashpoint in Swtor, at least on Republic side, I'll be using the Esseles Flashpoint to illustrate my point: Say you’ve rolled a Jedi Consular, for instance. After tearing through a horde of maladjusted Imperials, you've finally arrived at that infamous point of the instance in which an (exceedingly rare) moral quagmire is presented to you and the rest of your player-companions. Normally everyone would be given two choices here, either 1.) pay heed to the straight-to-business T'wilek Ambassador's advice to sacrifice a small crew of ship operators in order to expedite your fight against the Imperial incursion, or 2.) ignore the venomous words spewing out from that pretentious ******'s mouth and decide to spare them instead. Now, if this system I'm proposing were to be implemented you would be given two additional choices to choose from beyond the three-branched limit which is currently set for us.

 

 

 

Alright, alright, I'm about to! The thing is, there are two ways in which the whole thing could play out, so make sure to keep up, as it might get a little complicated from this point onwards.

 

OPTION #1

So in this scenario your ability to win a roll is tied to a number of factors, the first among which are your reflexes. You see, in order for you to even have a chance of rolling successfully on these additional Light-Side and Dark-Side options you would have be fast enough to click on them in the first place. Here's how it would work: two pulsating orbs of light, one red, one blue, would suddenly flash on screen, providing the player with only a fraction of a moment to click on them. If he succeeds clicking them on time he has a chance to win the roll, but if he fails, he's bound to regret it. This time-constricted, ticking-clock variation of the system should be familiar to players of Mass Effect 2, as it was lifted directly from it. However, contrary to that game, the difference here is that the appearance of these two options aren't a done deal – the rate at which they appear being mostly erratic so that players are kept continually on their toes, never knowing, or able to predict, the exact moment in which these orbs will decide to rear their heads.

 

 

 

To answer this question, allow me to return to the Esseles scenario I've been using as an example. Assuming the player managed to be quick (and lucky) enough to win the Light-side Roll, what would happen is that an action specific to his Consular class would then be triggered (in this case, FORCE PERSUATION) so that, instead of having to talk his way out of sacrificing the workmen as he would otherwise he can instead induce an hypnotic state upon the Ambassador, thereby forcing her to revise the ruthlessness of her beliefs. Alternatively, if the player had won the Dark-Side roll, he would perform a similar action, though with a considerably more mischievous outcome, the kind which would surely be relished by writers, as it would present them with a vast number of opportunties to concoct humorous situations—an aspect which, presently, this game's narrative sorely lacks.

 

Speaking of humor, you know what else writers would love? The BACKFIRES.

 

What are the backfires, you ask? Well it's fairly self-explanatory, really: it's what happens when cruel fate conspires against you so that, even if you manage to click on either of the two intervention options on time when they pop up, your roll is still somehow lost. In these (not so infrequent) circumstances, rather than performing an heroic deed or terrific show of power, you're essentially reduced, much to everyone else's amusement, to making buffoon of yourself. Not only that, you're blocked out from any and all future conversations for that particular flashpoint.

 

Here's how the situation might develop: Your Jedi Consular attempts to hypnotize the Ambassador, yet, to his surprise and disappointment, the Ambassador simply shurgs it off, as if she were completely immune to its grasp. For a moment it seems as if that's that. But then, suddenly, something kooky and expected! A strange moan, an incoherent babbling is heard. Turn around to discover, to everyone's great shock, that the Consular's spell has somehow backfired and taken hold of another player instead of its intended target. Eventually this player manages to break free from this spell and comes to. Except that now, he's furious. How dare anyone meddle with his mind, the audacity...Boom! He or she strikes your Consular with a beeatch-slap straight to the face. You promptly drop to your knees, humiliated and locked out from all further conversation rolls.

 

OPTION #2 (THE MMO-FRIENDLY ONE)

Okay, so here's my second take on how the conversation interrupt system might work. You guys tell me which you'd prefer to see implemented (though personally, I'm partial to this one). Instead of having a system that's reliant on twitch-reflexes in order to work (which, according to the feedback I've received, seems to be a no-no in MMO's) it would be set up as follows: As the player accumulates social points a meter is gradually filled which, upon reaching its limit, allows for the aforementioned SHOW-STOPPER to be unlocked. Now you might be wondering, quite rightly, how all of this might work from a visual standpoint. Fortuitously enough though, it's as if all the groundwork has already been put in place in order for this to be seamlessly implemented, and no additional work would be required from Bioware apart form some slight tinkering. To prove this, lets take a look at what the conversation U.I. currently looks like:http://pikigeek.com/2012/01/21/star-wars-the-old-republic-review-a-tale-of-galactic-conquest/ Notice how there's an outline running half the blue circle's perimeter, before it gets cut off by the three yellow bars that indicate the conversation options? Imagine that it would it slowly fill up with a red meter according to to the gradual build-up of social points you accumulate. See where I'm going with this…?

 

 

 

What else? Once the red meter reached the apex of the the circle's contour, the blue core at the center would begin to pulsate, indicating to the the player that he's finally unlocked the SHOWSTOPPER. All he need do now is click the circle to replace the three standard dialogue options with the two new Light-Side and Dark-side options which have been made available to him. Of course, as I mentioned before, the player must be judicious about his use of the SHOWSTOPPER, for his chances of either striking gold or striking out are always, irrespective of class, 50-50.

 

Well, that pretty much covers it.

 

I'm sure a lot of you have yet to be convinced this system is really the most effective way of countering the general sense of staleness which has settled into Flashpoints, that churning out more of them with additional (and more importantly, NEW) story content is the only sensible solution to the problem, but I disagree with this whole-heartedly. Not only as it relates to Flashpoints, but to any and all story-centric endeavors Bioware decide to lay their hands on in the future, as well. Because, no matter how perfectly structured, paced and well executed, a story is bound to grow stale sooner or later. We have an infinite variety of books, films, television series and other such mediums of entertainment (of which video-games are also a part) to prove this, that a story is only able to capture an audience's attention for so long before its characters become stale and one-note, for the events surrounding them to start feeling increasingly implausible and contrived (see: soap-operas). SWTOR is no exception. I'll address this problem in more detail in a future separate entry, but the crux of what I'm trying to say here is that, rather than piling on additional story elements it'd be much more intelligent, not to mention fruitful, for Bioware to perfect the ones which are already existent. Finally, the development of further Flashpoints pose a functional problem as well, which sooner or later would have to be addressed: the LFG tool. I mean, think about it—players already have a hard enough time grouping up of a handful of flashpoints as it is, imagine what that queue would look like if you had twenty-five of them to queue up for.

 

¹ Actually, the answer to this addresses several other problems, namely the lack of differentiation between classes and the seemingly superfluous social levels system, both of which I'll tackle in more detail later on.

 

 

PLAYER HOUSING

 

I take spaceship housing as a given, so I won't be addressing it as I'm sure it's bound to be implemented in the game sooner or later. However there is talk amongst some of the more zealous players of an entire planet dedicated simply to player housing. Instead of creating an entire planet exclusively for the purpose of player housing—which is dumb—try adding a Mega-Skyscraper or two to some new area on Coruscant. The planet needs something like this badly anyway: for a capital planet, it's revolting how bare and...lifeless it is. Oh, make sure to reflect the real world intricasies of real estate -- the higher the floor, the more expensive it'd beb (with the penthouse taking the cake of course). Great way to make a boatload of cash too now that F2p is coming out.

 

 

SPEEDERS

 

Like any other vehicle that's ever existed in this, or any other galaxy, speeders need to have some kind of acceleration. Their current static velocity is unrealistic and poses a serious a hindrance toward immersion.

Also, it would be nice if we could get a distinct sound for each of the different engines. The Kurtob speeder did a nice job with this, its engine producing a distinct hum, but it would be nice if we could have more variety along these lines for the other speeders as well.

 

 

SPRINT ABILITY

 

Unlock sprint ability at Legacy Level 1 instead of having it available for new players from the onset, immediately after character creation.

 

 

HOLOTERMINAL

 

The holo-terminal on our ships used to communicate with our respective faction's leadership is constantly glowing blue, as if signaling it wants to be interacted with, even when it doesn't.

 

SOLUTION: Get rid of this. Yesterday. It should only glow blue when inter-stellar communications are warranted. At this stage, 90% of the time it does f-all beyond resetting my U.I.

 

 

FLEET

 

Scrap the faction fleet as the main base of operations. From a narrative perspective it makes little sense, the capital worlds should be the central gathering points for each of the respective factions.¹

 

Imagine you're a new player. Not just a new player, but new to MMO's in general. Apart from a few hiccups along the way, your leveling experience is a fairly smooth one up until you reach level 10. But then as soon as you hit fleet you're inundated by a flood of new, sensory overloading game-systems: vendors peddling wares you won't be able to gain access to for another 40 levels, level 50 players parading high-tech gadgets of the kind which you, at such an early stage of your adventure, can only dream of obtaining (even though every NPC and their mother is treating you as the galaxy's last ray of hope), the chat box is swarming with befuddling, MMO-specific terminology you can't make any sense of, etc...For these reasons and more, and as a newbie to MMO's myself, I was this close to unsubbing the moment I hit fleet. Of course most folks here won't be able to sympathize with this problem of new game systems being unlocked at too early a stage, given that they're veterans of MMO's, and consequently at least somewhat familiar with all of them already. Problem is, the issue isn't merely functional, it is narrative as well. For instance, the sense of heroism Bioware supposedly went to such great lengths to provide SWTOR's players with is instantly shattered the moment he discovers even the FREAKING VENDOR standing behind the counter on fleet is 40 levels more powerful than him.

 

That's right, the fleet is broken. Remember, for instance, those holo-terminals located below the main level, where people would gather around to do flashpoints, the ones in which you'd get a sit-rep, an intro, essentially a narrative purpose for doing them in the first place? Well, that's all gone now, made null and avoid by the introduction of group finder, left to simply gather dust. This is actually another huge problem in itself, but I mention it here only as means to highlight just how senseless the fleet map has become -- you've got a whole floor, even entire separate ships, meant to teleport you to flashpoints that are now completely useless. But anyway, I digress. On to the --

 

SOLUTION: Okay, so we've already agreed that flooding a new player with too much information as early as level 10 is not the ideal approach, right? And if we've agreed that walking around on fleet surrounded by level 50's who look meaner, faster, cooler, than your measly-leveled toon is a highly deflating experience, then we'll also agree on the need to avoid these emasculating encounters while at the same time figuring out a way to space out the rate at which players are exposed to new game systems at a measured pace. But how to do this? Well, try this...

 

Create a copy of the capital world that’s only accessible at level 50. Imagine you're playing SWTOR for the very first time. Having reached the capital planet, Coruscant, you're feeling understandably underwhelmed by its lack of scope, its corridor structure… In short, its lack of ambition. But! There's an area closed off to you, for whatever reason. A bridge of some sort, like what they did with the GTA series. You wonder what it's all about. But then, you reach level 50 and you receive a HOLOVID update informing you this area is now freely accessible to you and every single other level 50, PLUS anyone with a Legacy level above a certain point (Legacy 3 sounds fair, I think). Oh, I'm not suggesting the fleets should be scrapped entirely. Nay, I think they should be kept, only not as a galactic epicenter. So far there are three ships -- one used as an all-purpose hub, a gathering point for all players above 10 (Carrick Station, on the Republic side) and two more (gav daragon and another one whose name escapes me at the moment) for flashpoint teleporting purposes. Keep them, but make them restricted to players in 10 level increments. In other words, levels 10 to 20 you gain access to Gav Daragon. There, you'll encounter players who may, potentially, be slightly more advanced than you, but are still within the same realm of experience. There, vendors will sell you things you can actually gain access to, understand, and, more importantly, afford. There, the conversations rolling down on the chatbox won't be pertaining to things that you, as a novice, aren't quite ready to grok yet, etc...

 

Gav Daragon: 10 to 20

The other one I forget: 20 to 30

Some new space station made for: 30's to 40

Carrick Station: 40 to 49

LEVEL 50's and their ALTS (Legacy level 2 and beyond): CORUSCANT and Drommund Kaas.

 

The idea of streamlining the leveling experience so as to restrict encounters with maxed characters, to make it a much rarer prospect for first-time players, is bound to meet its fair share of detractors, especially amongst the hardcore crowd. These people are more likely to have little to no empathy with the first-time user because they've already gone through the grind, worked for ceaseless hours to obtain their much-prized gear, and so they'll be damned if anyone tries to take away their hard-earned right to show off their uber-cool characters decked out in resplendent regalia to the rest of the world. The thing is, though, this wouldn't be detracting at all from that sense of validation they so hunger for. In fact on the contrary, the end result of making level 50 encounters rarer would be that in those few times in which the newbie DOES run into a maxed character (say, for example, on a datacron hunt or as part of a world-event), he or she would then stand in awe of them, as if they just spotted an Elvis apparition. What's more, this way you wouldn't be just another level 50 lost in a sea of level 50's competing for attention on a fleet.

 

¹ Problem is, both capital worlds are highly underdeveloped at this stage; they just don't feel very "capital" at all..

 

 

HUTTBALL

 

Remove Huttball from the Warzone queue. Thematically, it doesn't make any sense for them to be included. I mean, they're called WARzones for christ's sake, not Hutt Games. Instead, make them a place. Yes, a place! Some kind of Arena venue, preferably located on Nar Shadaa (which by rights should be the capital of fun and games, but right now is the capital of zilch). Allow bets to be placed.

 

 

WORLD BOSSES

 

Nothing wrong with the bosses themselves, per se; the problem is the complete lack of narrative impetus to defeat them.

 

SOLUTION: Write an in-depth description of them in the codex. Provide a backstory, a reason for us to care. If those overgrown gerbils out on Tatooine are deemed worthy of three paragraphs, why the Force would a ten-ton cyclopean reptile be given a pass?

 

 

GROUP FINDER

 

I used to be nothing less than revolted with group finder. Not only due to the sheer amount of problems it brought to the fore, but also in part (or is it mostly?) because of its positive reception. I must have become jaded at some point though, because nowadays I seem to be practically immune to the spectacular show of ignorance SWTOR's player-base so often exhibits. It's the kind of ignorance best typified by those of you still scratching your heads, wondering what the hell I'm going on about, and it's you who I now address:

 

Do any of you remember how Flashpoints were run before the LFG tool was introduced? Do you recall the way in which the grouping up process was different back then?

 

 

 

Yes, but no. The real answer is this: once you found enough people to group up, you would then all gather at the terminals on fleet to get a sit-rep from your respective faction's leaders (Satele Shan on the Republic side, Darth Malgus on Imperial) before heading to the instance proper.

 

 

 

Of course you haven't! And the reason why you haven't is because they were made completely devoid of meaning with the introduction of the LGF tool. And while I'm sure this is far from being an issue to those players who've already hit level cap with at least one character and have run each and every one of the currently available Flashpoints multiple times (which, given the static subscriptions rate in SWTOR, are likely to be the vast majority), but for those who are new to SWTOR it poses a problem of nearly game-breaking proportions. Why? Because the purpose of those conversations wasn't just so that players could stack up on social points, it was to offer them a motive for wanting to run the FP's in the first place, a narrative incentive, a purpose. So what happens now instead? Well, what happens is that players are thrown into these Flashpoints without so much as a clue as to how and why they got there, what's happening, or what they're supposed to do. And as if this wasn't bad enough, even those players who are savy enough to realize the tool is broken, and so take it upon themselves to group up in the traditional manner, are bound to have hugely important plot threads spoilt for them sooner or later, since Bioware actually incentivates us to run Flashpoints randomly (by offering daily commendations in exchange), thus negating all our attempts to run them chronologically, as they should be. This is especially vexing considering we're talking about a developer that prides itself for its supposedly singular-minded focus on story.

 

But wait, I'm not done yet! There's yet another game system that was left broken by the introduction of the LFG tool. Remember all of those transport ships strewn across the surface of each planet? You know, the ones with the Robot quest-givers (aka flashpoint couriers)? Yup, that's right, those too are now bereft of any purpose whatsoever, and I can only imagine the amount of head scratching their continued existence has incited on new players.

 

In conclusion, given that two whole game-system were sapped of all functionality by the LFG tool, and considering too, that I've yet to hear even the slightest peep from the community about this problem (on the contrary, group finder has been been hailed, against all reason, as a much needed improvement to the game, one of the few things SWTOR's team has gotten right thus far), I think you'll find all the frustration and anger I once directed at this matter to be somewhat justified, or at the very least not entirely misplaced.

 

SOLUTION: From a functional standpoint the most quick-fire, least expensive, and easiest of solutions would be to revert the game back to its pre-Group Finder state. The only issue is that from a marketing and financial perspective this would be tantamount to suicide. I've devised a few potential workarounds to this problem, but after giving it some thought, I've decided this one would be the most practical: keep new players from using the Group Finder tool to run Flashpoints until they've completed them at least once in the traditional way.

 

There. Simple, right?

 

 

TRAVEL

 

There's a lack of incentive to travel. Why? Well, take a look at the real world for a clue. What's our own primary incentive to travel, beyond exploring different sights? The answer is exploring different cultures. What is a culture? A system. What is a system, in SWTOR's case? A mini-game. And right now, there is a total absence of systems unique to a particular planet to help differentiate them from each other, to set them apart. The sole exception is some crystal- making machine on Coruscant, and sorry to say, that's far from cutting it. Implement a system that's unique to a particular planet and you get a rudimentary form of culture. Implement a culture and you create a reason to travel.

 

Look to the real world for inspiration: want to get the best suits in the world, a special custom-made dose of sartorial sprezzatura? Go to Italy. Specifically, Napoli. Want exposure to that special, filthy-rich sort of decadence? Go to Monaco during the Grand-prix. Looking for the low-brow variant? Buy yourself a ticket to Vegas, where the Ed Hardy crowd like to congregate. And finally, if you're looking for the the best and worst of everything the world has to offer, then New York's your place (by the way this what Coruscant should be). Now think along Star Wars lines. The creme-de-la creme of swoop races, the final shebang, where all the top-end pilots go to prove their worth, would be on Alderaan. The best and rarest Jedi Gear should be found on Dantooine. Want to hunt for exotic animals, then Tatooine is the best (and only) place for you! You get the point, I could go on and on…

 

 

PLAYER ROLE

 

Players lack the sense that their decisions have any real effect on the game. It's true, too. None of our decisions really mean anything at the moment, regardless of how evil or goody goody two-shoes our respective paths end up being. The solution for this lies in that metrics program Bioware likes to brag about so much, that proprietary system they came up with to collate every single shred of data in SWTOR down to the last 01 bit. Instead of limiting its use for finding out where players die the most, or to determine class imbalances, use it for this: gather up intel on every single player's light side/dark side choice, every pro-republic or pro-imperial decision, every single warzone outcome, and make them all count. How? Server specific events. Rather than wasting time brainstorming what the next world event should look like, you should tie them directly to the results of said findings. Publish the results of these findings so players can keep up.

 

In other words, imagine you've determined that, on balance, more light-side choices have been on a specific server overall, than dark side ones. Change the world accordingly. Have it shift gradually to a chirpier, more festive kind of place. Conversely, if more dark side options were taken overall, perhaps vegetation begins to rot away, infrastructure begins to crumble...a darker, more foreboding ambiance in general begins seeping in.

That's one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is pro-republic vs pro-imperial player options. I'd include PVP and Warzone results as a factor in this, but the end result would be something like... I don't know, say more pro-Imperial decisions were made on one server... instead of having "Rakghouls Return" as the next event, have Carrick Station be attacked. Players will then have to deal with repairs for the foreseeable future until they turn the tide.Say too, that more Warzones were also won by Imperials than defenders of the Republic. Have the territory on a contested planet shift toward the Empire's favor as a reflection. Again, these results would be published for all to see, either in the holovid network on swtor.com. Preferably the first.

 

Sorry, I have this idea very clearly laid out on my mind but have to refine more it in writing.

 

It's feasible, trust me. Er, I think…

 

 

SOUND

 

So this section will be far more detailed in the future, but for now I only want to address a couple of minor issues. Lets start with jumping. Maybe I'm spoiled, but practically every other single game I've played has had some form of audio cue attached to a jump, usually in the form of a grunt, or squirm to indicate some kind of effort on the character's part. SWTOR should have this too.

 

My other gripe pertains to the background audio track, the ambient sound so to speak. It's dismal in this game, a real wreck. Its faults do not lie so much with its execution, but rather with the lack of diversity offered. Have you noticed, for instance, that practically all of the indoor locations in SWTOR use the exact same sound track between? You know what I'm talking about: those sounds of grinding machine parts, iron clanging, etc..

In short, the kind of soundscape that would fit a steel-mill or factory perfectly (both of which there are no shortage of in SWTOR), but stands out like a sore thumb in, for instance, a cave. The problem is, like I already said, the game uses this same soundtrack irrespective of the setting. The philisophy seems to be, if it's indoors, then we use it.

 

(To be continued)

 

SOLUTION: Self-explanatory.

 

 

U.I. DESIGN

 

It looks atrocious ever since the 1.2 update. I'm not against allowing player customization per se, but this new one makes a mockery of even the most basic principles of design. I'm shocked it even made it past quality control in the first place, to think it's persisted as is for this long is... i don't even know what it is...

 

 

No, it's not. THIS is the original U.I.

 

If I have to lay it out for you then you just don't get it.

 

*Sigh* Fine, I'll give you a clue: Notice the blue, semi-translucent thing which runs from the character portrait down to the quickbars, seamlessly tying everything together. Notice how the quickbars don't overlap on top of each other, as they do in the CURRENT "Standard U.I.", but instead are all inside a box-like structure that keeps everything neatly stored. I could go on and on. I mean, even the pop-up informing you a friend has come on-line used to look a thousand times better. See for yourself in

(starting at 0:41 secs, then again 1:57).

 

 

VOICES

 

When players of the same class group together it's jarring to have to listen to two or more people with the exact same voice.

 

SOLUTION: Voice alterations, like EAX, are only part of the solution. The key is to add new voice work, period. Benefit? You sell them. Only 19. 99 for a new male/female voice pack! Easy money. Not all players will buy it, of course, but all will be able to hear these new voices. Everyone wins.

 

And as for EAX, I'd repurpose it for something else entirely. I'd use it as another indicator for moral alignment, so that the more Dark Side points you have, the more cold, gravelly and generally menacing your character's voice becomes.

 

 

Man I enjoy these kind of posts! Good work!

[TalonVII]

Well i'll chime in on what i liked and what i tweaked. For the most part i liked a lot of it. hermit, meh. The hutball DEFINATELY AGREE.

 

Bounties, well i don't think agree with that one, but instead i'd just make hundreds of NPC bounties that can be done for fun and they have a small to moderate payout[no gear drops]. Now for PVP bounties, only way a bounty can be hunted if they are on

 

A: PvP server

 

B: If not on a PvP server, PvP flag MUST be engaged to be hunted as a bounty, so people have the option to opt out. Now if you're in a PvP zone and marked for a bounty, well you are simply SOL.

 

To add onto that, i'd a galactic NPC economy. Things that are always shifting and changing randomly. In Sid Meyer's Pirates for Example Port A needs goods, while Port B needs say food stuffs. In the SW universe it would open up SMUGGLING. I mean for again some cheap fun and stuff you have to go into an Empire planet cause a guy wants spice from Ryloth and is paying top dollar. Well that opens up a mission for the smugglers to blockade run, deliver the cargo then somehow get out.

 

There is so much that could be added to spice things up for players.

 

Imperial agents actually having to infiltrate Courscant to get intel.

 

Plus the different worlds having different attractions was like having KOTOR back again. You could buy a swoop and race it for a fee and win prizes, while others could bet on the races, or on Nar Shadaa hutball, again play for credits and such or bet on the games.

 

Make the planets ALIVE. Hell in the Red District, make it the Red District, where you can buy all sorts of pleasures for fun.

 

Love the apartment ideas and such. Want a home, have on on Alderaan, or Nar Shadaa.

 

I like where you were going with this, definitely needs tweaking to make these planets come more to life.

[mourasantos]

Just wanted to thank you guys for this latest batch of very constructive posts. I'll get around to addressing them point-for-point as soon as I have the time.

[mourasantos]

EDIT: added NPC's section.

[SgtJeremy]

I thought this was a good read, getting a view on what people thought of the game and how they'd improve it was really interesting. I did notice some people leaving posts like "This idea is bad cause I said so" comments. I respect peoples opinions but if you're going to say something is good or bad leave a reason as too why it is good/bad. Just my two cents. I am new to MMO's, Swtor being the first, and to be honest I am very pleased with my experience and feel guilty not having any constructive criticism or any kind of input other than "I enjoy it". The only real problem I am having is finding groups for Heroics on the higher up planets and I am a bit of an completionist. But they are making efforts to increase server size, via server mergers and such. All in all I love reading these posts and thoroughly enjoy the game and for the most part it's player base.

[mourasantos]

I thought this was a good read, getting a view on what people thought of the game and how they'd improve it was really interesting. I did notice some people leaving posts like "This idea is bad cause I said so" comments. I respect peoples opinions but if you're going to say something is good or bad leave a reason as too why it is good/bad.

Hear, hear!

Edited October 15, 2012 by mourasantos

[Cakellene]

Millions? If only...

That would mean this game would be doing a lot better than it is right now

 

Not really, 250k accounts with 8 toons each is 2 million toons that could each use their own house.

[Costello]

Some very good points though could never agree with a bounty hunting system, mainly because we would never hear the end of republic players moaning that Imperials have an option they don't.

[mourasantos]

Some very good points though could never agree with a bounty hunting system, mainly because we would never hear the end of republic players moaning that Imperials have an option they don't.

The idea would be that Republic players would have options the empire don't have as well, as a way to balance that.

[mourasantos]

Not really, 250k accounts with 8 toons each is 2 million toons that could each use their own house.

Mm. Never thought of that, good point.

[mourasantos]

If they made player housing on each planet, a non-instanced sceneario might be feasible.

[Sithcreep]

If they made player housing on each planet, a non-instanced sceneario might be feasible.

 

Fantastic idea.

 

But I would even take it to the next level and create different home planets for each class. So maybe Bounty Hunters may prefer a secluded and practical home on Tatooine, whereas Imperial Agents may prefer the decadence and luxury of a 14 room penthouse on Alderaan, while Inquisitiors may favor a secluded, arcane mansion on Dromund Kaas etc.

 

And now imagine you could actually pay your buddy a visit on lets say Alderaan and be amazed by the great view he has on the 50th floor etc. Also players could interact with their companions or even legacy characters that way.

 

And continuing that thought, now imagine how cool it were, if you could for instance burglarize a rival players place and rob him. Of course that would be a challenge in itself. For instance you could have some of your not deployed companions reside at your home and guarding it. And/or maybe implement some other sort of security measures. An Imperial Agent for instance would rely on guard droids, while the Sith class would favor some mind-controlled vicious beasts etc. Now imagine you could for example hire other players or a group of NPC mercs to assist you in your deed. Thus overcoming those defensive systems would be a challenge in itself.

 

Imagine how interesting it would be to have such a dynamic environment, instead of just mindlessly grinding the same WZs, FPs, Dailies and Ops over and over again.

Edited October 18, 2012 by Sithcreep

[mourasantos]

And continuing that thought, now imagine how cool it were, if you could for instance burglarize a rival players place and rob him. Of course that would be a challenge in itself. For instance you could have some of your not deployed companions reside at your home and guarding it. .

 

Actually I'm working on developing an idea that's very similar to this. It involves the Bounty Hunter Class. Every time they'd collect a Bounty on a player and/or NPC's, BH's would have the choice to either cash in, or neglect the credits by choosing to keep a trophy, a memento of their feat (imagine a rival player's head on the wall, or in a jar) in order to decorate their homes. I don't want to get too much into it, but suffice it to say that the player whose head is in question has the option to hire a Smuggler to infiltrate/ransack the BH's home, or ship, in order to recover his head.

[morfius]

If you're not forced, then you ought to be. The distinction made between PVE and PVP servers is artificial, and one of the many outmoded tropes of MMOs that need to be well and truly done away with in order for the genre to survive.

 

False.

This will only lead to major part of playerbase leaving genre for sure.

Then your type of players will have nothing to play.

Keep dreaming

[mourasantos]

False.

This will only lead to major part of playerbase leaving genre for sure.

Then your type of players will have nothing to play.

Keep dreaming

Interesting theory...

[RickShan]

*Bump*

 

This is a thread that shouldn't die just like that, great ideas!

[Powrtech]

I agree with the guy above me, keep this thread alive! Bioware really should read this one, thoroughly. I would love for even half or less of these propositions implemented into the game, and being a BH myself i'd love player bounties and playing a smuggler i'd love to actually be hired to, well, you know, ACTUALLY SMUGGLE STUFF... or rob BH's homes like you said

[Powrtech]

Just commenting to keep this thread relevant. Hoping to keep it alive

[Jemfisto]

Some great ideas in here, others are too far gone at this point. I think this game really needs a big expansion that adds 3d explorable space, make coruscant and dromund kaas the capital worlds and add life to them, and make more planets like tatooine or hoth that are very open and explorable. Give us swoop racing and pazaak on nar shadda. Add some star wars to this game by giving the worlds life.

[Sydexlic]

I have a dream! That one day SWTOR will look something like this:

 

ADAPTIVE CONVERSATION SYSTEM

 

Problem here, one of simple math. A convesation of 2 choices would need 3^2 = 9 dialogue choices. These would need to be acted, voiced and animated, a dialogue of 6 deep, would be 3^6 = 729 dialogue choices. By increasing the breadth of the dialogue trees, they'd have to sacrifice the depth.

 

CANTINAS

CLASSES

The rest

tl;dr

[WillDad]

I love all of your ideas, ya know, I think some of this could go in the Cartel Shop. Buy your player/Legacy a house/mansion. 1500 Cartel Coins. There are endless possibilities out there that could be used. We just have to think of them and let the devs know.