Advanced gameplay improvements

[Eurynamous]

In the below documentation, I will list a few systems that I believe will bring a greater level of entertainment and value to your paying customers.

 

Part 1: Seasonal end-game content tied to daily zones on every planet.

Part 2: Story dailies, daily quest chains that tie up loose story archs earlier in the chapter.

Part 3: Increased choice on future flashpoint/operations. Larger boss pool, choice determines what bosses.

Part 4: Increased choice options, multiple shades of light and dark, less yes, no and maybe choice styles.

Part 5: Guild Legacy, Grouping Legacy and Friends Legacy.

 

Now to begin.

 

Part 1: Seasonal End-game.

 

The idea behind seasonal endgame is simple. Once per seasonal change, two new zones open up randomly for the factions. One for the republic on any republic controlled planet and one for the imperials. These zones are active for one season (4 months) and introduces new daily quests, a long chain quest, a flashpoint and an operation. The chain quest, once completed, grants access to the flashpoint, which is another quest to gain access to the op. the rewards for the seasonal end-game should be along the lines of current dailies. Bh comms, daily comms and credits. Along with adaptive gear that matches the flavor of the zone.

 

A brief example: The sandstorms of Korriban have died down and we now have access to a previously cut off part of the planet, above ground there are ancient ruins and mysteries to be unlocked, but underground, there are hints of an ancient Sith civilization that may still be thriving.

 

Players perform the dailies to solve the mystery of how to get into the underground refuge (operation) to see if there is any truth to it.

 

Rewards can include cultural gear, akin to what naga Sadow would have been wearing during his stint for power. Even introduce a new "Untainted" True Sith pure blood companion. Unstable lightsabers that look like the blades are jagged with containment ruptures and introduce seasonal crafting mats, like saber crystals with two, smaller secondary stats instead of one large stat.

 

The benefit to seasonal content is that once it is cycled out of season, it's content can be updated and improved due to metrics and released on its next rotation, 3 seasons later.

 

Part 2: Story Dailies, this should involve comapanions and loose ends in the story. For example, whatever happened to that weak monster I ran around korriban for? Feeding him the bodies of force users... This walks right into the daily story scenario. Sith acolytes and lords have been vanishing on korriban, nothing but scraps remain of the once powerful sith. You must investigate and stop this senseless slaughter as it will cripple our war efforts.

 

Daily chain 1: investigation and clue hunting quests- players search for missing sith and perform forensic style questing.

 

Daily chain 2: One of your companions goes missing, follow the clue to rescue your companion before its too late. Simple rescue mission, added level of complexity would be following blood trails, sounds in an area with no light and fighting the offspring of the monster.

 

Daily chain 3: culling the heard, destroy all the offspring before they reach the surface. Make it a timed event that can only be attempted once a day. Players have to use cunning and control, pushed to the limits to complete.

 

Daily chain 4-7: Leading up to 8

 

End of chain: confrontation, witness the might of the creature you spared. Defeat it in combat and either give it a new direction to further your own goals or save future lives and stop its rampage.

 

Rewards: comms/credits/exclusive to the end choice the player made.

 

Part 3: increased choice. Currently, the first introduction flashpoints held true to the choice scenario, offering different bosses and parts of the flashpoint being accessible. 3 bosses per 3 phases, should introduce enough randomness and reason to explore the advanced choices menu. Multiple light and multiple dark. This excludes any hidden bosses.

 

Part 4: Better selection of choices, one light, one dark and one neutral is really shallow... That is all.

 

Part 5: Legacy, this is BioWares trump card, the saving grace! Guild legacy should be a system that takes 2% Exp from each member. 10% credits from each kill to the guild bank. There should be 100 levels with a new feature to unlock at every 5 levels. Major feature at level 50 needs to be a guild flagship. The ship should be accessible through the interfleet transport. The guild ship unlocks should be drop pods or transports to each operation/flashpoint. Access to each personal ship. Gtn, banks, uniforms, combat boosts, exp boosts, banners and any gameplay bonus conceivable.

 

There should also be crew quarters for private rooms and a museum room that automatically tracks the guilds progress in raids and fills with appropriate trophies and artifacts that contain lore and tracks the members who had been in the fight.

 

Essentially a hub for guilds that can be staged for future guild vs guild pvp. With purchasing npc guards and the such to give the ship some life.

 

This concludes my current list. Future parts 6-12 will be drawn up and posted at a future date.

[Superllvllan]

BUMP... Great suggestions!

[spiduranche]

I have to agree with some of the information that has been posted here. Especially the Guild legacy. I know for a fact, I love being in a guild, making friends and playing on a daily basis with them. But with the guild legacy and having some sort of Guild instance area, such as a flagship esque instance, would make the game more alive, especially if it tracked guild progression and member progression through raids.

[Eurynamous]

It's too bad the bioware didn't release an editor for this game. Letting the fan base build zones of content to submit and review. There are a few games in the world that I would gladly build something for and not want credit or pay.

[spiduranche]

That is so true, It certainly would have been something interesting to implement into a MMO. I know for a fact that games like TF2 have content creation areas and they have worked fairly successful. Allowing the community to create content and then allowing the community to vote on the player content.

 

Thus being said, Bioware could choose content based on what their gamer population wants at the time. However They would still have control over what is put in the game, and how they nerf certain things so they aren't game breaking.

[Eurynamous]

Part 6: Persistent PVP.

 

So there is this "Super Secret Space Project" in the works. How it works is beyond me, but realistically, it will likely be like JTL. To do something significant, Bioware will need to take a page from "thinking outside the box" and "innovating".

 

Here is how I present a path to a measure of moderate success.

 

Step 1) Intergrate this space system.

 

Step 2) Optimize the engine to at least support 100 players using their abilities, depleting and restoring their health in one phase.

 

Step 3) Create a planet the size of Hoth, with two faction starting points, a fair distance from their base of operation and defending objective.

 

Step 4) Create objectives that can't be "traded" for dailies... ***...

 

Step 5) Link ground objectives with space objectives, similar to what you experienced while watching Return of the Jedi, revenge of the Sith or even Phantom Menace. Where ground crews need to assist in dropping mass shield generators in order to board a giant death weapon of go *********** die.

 

Step 6) Optimize the **** out of it before release, with having it tested at max capacity with 5 phases active at all times... That's a player count of 100 per phase.

 

Step 7) If you think it has been tested enough... You're wrong, test it more and have people try to break it, with incentives to have them break it.

 

Step 8) Unbreakable by your team of QA? Outsider input time. More testing.

 

Step 9) Be transparent about it, include all the planned content and update regularily on the status to your clients. If you get stuck, tell the clients why you're stuck, you're possible fixes and the % of its survival to make it to live.

 

Step 10) With this new approach, watch your clients pay close attention, ask the right questions, turn off the hate tap and turn on the hope tap.

 

 

If you can create a living, breathing Star Wars war... You can recover subscribers. If you can make it work for PvP first, you can make it for PvE easily. Operations and raids that start from space ship battles and end inside a cruiser... Then back to space to escape destruction... High adventure...