Leontar Posted February 11, 2014 Share Posted February 11, 2014 After over a year absense from Star Wars: The Old Republic, I finally made a choice to return and see how it has progressed so far. In general my opinion is positive, though still some troubles still remain. But I won't face anything on a negative perspective, but try to give a positive outlook instead. I believe what I may suggest will be welcome to other players, as well as add something good in terms of functionality and overall experience. Quickbar Response & Queue: Since most abilities are not exactly 1sec cast and there is no auto-attack option, the global cooldown isn't exactly the best way to anticipate when the next ability will be available to cast / use. Therefore I recommend a queue tab, where a player can record up to 3 abilities in-line (like a flash over temporary bar) with a wipe effect to indicate the timer of that ability. That should apply for the attack ones. The reason for this suggestion is that especially when it comes to melee units, the UI tends to go out of sync. I've found, once too many times, my melee tanks having big trouble using an ability, which has led me into tapping the keys more than a few times. In return, I'm seeing the animation reset on each tap and the ability not eventually casting. An ability queue might give a good visual as to what's happening, especially when a situation turns chaotic and some abilities fail to cast. Mental - Internal Resistance Attributes This is something that I believe is vital. So far I've only encountered resistances to armor/damage reduction. But as a tank, I tend to pick up some talents that say "increases internal/mental resistance by x%", but I have no idea the level of that resistance. Especially in higher levels, where mobs tend to cast a plethora of DoTs that create different stacks, the amount of incoming damage at times is unreal. A level 46 mob (personal storyline, Sith Juggernaut) on Voss does severely greater damage in absolute numbers than level 54 Makeb elites. At a point where I had to face two of them, their DoTs stack differently, delivering approximately 2.4k of damage per tick. I tend to believe that any armor level do not have any application to the internal/mental resistances, and I have no way of seeing what my resistances are on these aspects. Hence when I receive DoT stacks on me, my guardian tank tends to bleed health as if he was wearing nothing but level 1 pyjamas on! Besides this, I believe that a unification of DoT types is in order, to avoid having different mobs cast different stacks of them. It's ok to have a stack of each (i.e. bleedingx2 or x3). I've reached as far as having 4 of x3 stacks of burning, which even my out-of-combat healing couldn't overcome. I see that this has been nicely fixed on Makeb. Makeb Level Differences: I believe there is a significant power gap from the previous planets and Makeb. A fresh off-the-boat character that finished his/her personal story on a free account at level 50, will soon reach a frustration level when creating a subscription to enter Makeb. The reason is that the enemies increase in level faster than a character with rested experience. My first effort at Makeb came with my Sage, who was Columi/Rakata geared. She had a ton of rest xp to use, but it wasn't long before she would be level 51 and face level 54 mobs in some cases. The most usual scenario would be facing enemies, including elites 2 levels above. Poorly geared characters (from quest rewards) will simply have no chance on that planet. My recommendation is one of the two: 1st Drastically increase the experience amount gained on the planet... ...or give players alternatives to gain levels that will make the game worthwhile playing. Even this far, I had no idea of several planets' bonus series, until I saw it in the group finder (nice addtion by the way). And I still visited those planets and couldn't find the bonus quest givers. Some things need to become more obvious and not remain hidden in some remote corner of the republic/imperial fleet. or 2nd Improve quest rewards... ...as what they currently give (pre-Makeb) is simply the absolute minimum that doesn't even guarantee survival on simple encounters. Ever since the adaptive armor and the beautiful alterations on the commendations system (thank you for that), I believe that the quest reward system has somewhat become obsolete. Make the armor stats competitive, so that the player would have to think twice before blindly selecting the commendation. At this point, I only check the mission reward gear stats to compare with my current one. If they start getting close, then it's time for an upgrade. I never, ever select any gear for my character that comes from a normal quest. Unlocking quest objective mobs This is something I encountered in Guild Wars 2, which I believe is a huge breakthrough in quest running. Star Wars already has incredible levels of grinding, which is something that turns a lot of people off, including myself. As a tank, that I usually play, I either have to swallow having to kill galaxies of mobs to get the extra bit of experience or risk falling behind and entering my next storyline mission, facing enemies that will multi-DoT stack me into oblivion. In several multi-stage bonus objectives, you have done the great job of having a key-activation object that triggers the final boss. If that can be done for all quest objectives (i.e. require a minimum damage input), everyone can participate in quests without having to go into the grouping process or having to wait for an enormous amount of time for some respawns to occur. So far, I've seen you've done some admirable job on some quest item respawns, but some problems (especially with elite mob quest objectives) still remain. In short, I'm suggesting an open-group quest objectives, where anyone can participate, and have a minimum participation parameter (i.e. damage/healing done or damage received / participation time) for additional people to have a quest completion or mob kill experience. Bonus / new mission notifications Since many people don't tend to travel to planets they already finished (or think they have finished), it would be nice to have a communications device inside the player's ship that makes them aware that this planet or that planet could use further assistance. Until this past week, the only bonus missions I was aware of were the ones that the quest giver catches you before you take off (except Nar Shaddaa, where at times one of your companions sends you there). Well, that's it for now. I'm sorry if I have made people tired of my long post. As you can see from my above descriptions, I strongly believe that I place my emphasis on the following catefories: 1. User Interface integrity, responsiveness and ease of use 2. Visibility of attributes, so that I am aware what comes from where and what I'm able to resist against (or not) 3. Ability to be aware of what is going on in the galaxy, quest wise. It's a futuristic world where everyone has communication devices. Having to run and search for hidden quest givers (for the bonus series), when they -themselves- say that your character is the best thing that happened to their planet (but they failed to give you a call when they needed you), leaves many of us unaware. Again, thank you for your time, and I hope my input can be food for thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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