Too many loading screens IMO...suggestion to reduce some of the unecessary load

[LordArtemis]

I would like to see a few changes made with respect to going to planets, especially lower level ones.

 

1) Reduce the size of all Starports

 

Some of these ports are far too huge. Would be better, IMO, to redesign some of them to make them more compact and efficient.

 

2) Rework all landing sequences for planets.

 

You designed a "makeb style" egress for landing on the faction station, and that was fantastic IMO. A huge improvement. I would suggest that all planets deserve that treatment.

 

3) Remove empty stations in space that exist as barriers to landing on the surface.

 

I get why they exist...you dock your ship, take a shuttle to the surface. But really, due to poor quality and loading issue for the planets this really exists as just an annoying barrier to getting to the business at hand. Considering one can go from the surface to his ship either by QT using a perk, or a daily console, seems silly to me to not have the same thing for egress to the surface.

 

This would just be for those stations that represent nothing but a barrier...obviously some stations are important to questing, and have NPCs that offer missions.

 

Doing so would also reduce the load on the servers a bit IMO.

4) Give us an egress button in the cockpit.

 

Something that allows us to exit our ship, instead of just using the door. Makes more sense IMO.

 

Thank you for your time.

[AbsolutGrndZero]

Depending on your computer, yes the game can take time to load. But its not because the spaceport is too big... because the spaceports are big because they should be big... compact and efficient wouldn't be organic the way the world should be. As for the orbital stations, by that time you should already have the planet loaded as those stations are like a "room" on the planet, so if you are having significant load times between the orbital station and the planet, then I'm sorry but your computer isn't up to par for this game.

 

As for being able to exit your ship without walking to the door.. sounds like you want instant travel from point A to point B, do mission, teleport directly to next mission, etc. No walking, nothing.

Edited May 22, 2014 by AbsolutGrndZero

[LordArtemis]

Depending on your computer, yes the game can take time to load. But its not because the spaceport is too big... because the spaceports are big because they should be big... compact and efficient wouldn't be organic the way the world should be. As for the orbital stations, by that time you should already have the planet loaded as those stations are like a "room" on the planet, so if you are having significant load times between the orbital station and the planet, then I'm sorry but your computer isn't up to par for this game.

 

As for being able to exit your ship without walking to the door.. sounds like you want instant travel from point A to point B, do mission, teleport directly to next mission, etc. No walking, nothing.

 

Hmm. Well, it may sound that way to you, but I think what I actually said is crystal clear. Therefore I'm not sure why something that clear would sound like something completely different to you....unless you don't think I speak my mind or have hidden motives.

 

Both ideas would be silly.

 

The idea is to reduce the load screens, not reduce the amount of loading time inside those screens...again, that much should have been obvious from the OP and the title. I mean...there is very little room to cause confusion...the text is rather obvious.

 

And again, I have to say that it might be best to simply reply to the post instead of preaching to the choir, so to speak.

 

But hey, at least you got to point out that this game works well on good machines. I suppose that small morsel will benefit someone at some point.

Edited May 25, 2014 by LordArtemis

[trancejeremy]

This drives me crazy.

 

Why are the space ports so huge? Just put the ship by the door of the spacedock, not on the other side of the map. And then put the docks near the exit of the spaceport.

 

And on planets with no spaceport, just let me exit the ship directly to the planet. No having to go through an airlock, then an orbital station, then down to the planet. Just ship to planet.

[LordArtemis]

This drives me crazy.

 

Why are the space ports so huge? Just put the ship by the door of the spacedock, not on the other side of the map. And then put the docks near the exit of the spaceport.

 

And on planets with no spaceport, just let me exit the ship directly to the planet. No having to go through an airlock, then an orbital station, then down to the planet. Just ship to planet.

 

An example of my point. I am sure there are folks out there that share my view that some of the roadblocks that exist between the planets and your ship are silly at best.

[AbsolutGrndZero]

The spaceports and loading docks are part of the world... They didn't just arbitrarily put them there to screw with you. As for loading screens, they are necessary when the game is... loading. Again, they aren't there to screw with you. I get very few loading screens, and when I do they are rarely up for more than 5-10 seconds, unless I am going to a completely new planet.

[LordArtemis]

The spaceports and loading docks are part of the world... They didn't just arbitrarily put them there to screw with you. As for loading screens, they are necessary when the game is... loading. Again, they aren't there to screw with you. I get very few loading screens, and when I do they are rarely up for more than 5-10 seconds, unless I am going to a completely new planet.

 

Ok, lets clear this up right now.

 

You get the same loading screens everyone else does.

 

It is not necessary to have so many loading screens between landing on certain planets considering the space port has no purpose IMO.

 

You do not share that opinion.

 

You can keep the rest of your hyperbole. Loading screens are for loading, posting boards are for posting, doors are for going....thanks for the tip sparky.

[AbsolutGrndZero]

Ok, lets clear this up right now.

 

You get the same loading screens everyone else does.

 

It is not necessary to have so many loading screens between landing on certain planets considering the space port has no purpose IMO.

 

You do not share that opinion.

 

You can keep the rest of your hyperbole. Loading screens are for loading, posting boards are for posting, doors are for going....thanks for the tip sparky.

 

I do not get a loading screen between orbital space stations and planet side most of the time, but occasionally I do. If you don't beleive that and think it's some plot by "the man" to waste your time with loading screens, well... The Illuminati asked me to have you call them.

[LordArtemis]

I do not get a loading screen between orbital space stations and planet side most of the time, but occasionally I do. If you don't beleive that and think it's some plot by "the man" to waste your time with loading screens, well... The Illuminati asked me to have you call them.

 

Please tell them to keep the fish.

 

Shenanigans.

[rklontz]

The loading screens often times load the entire planet and zones which indeed does reduce loading screens and times. I will gladly take the 2 or 3 load screens in the course of my game play vs a load screen every time I enter a new zone or building

[Starglitter]

Mmm...

 

While I see all vantage points to be valid to an extent, there is on occassion excessive transitioning that really has no need for.

 

For example, take OPS, you are defeated and forced to transition to fleet for no intelligent reason, and then transition to the beginning of the OPS, and then you travel to were you were defeated. It seems to me upon defeat, you should be transported to the beginning of the OPS, and do away with the fleet transition and needless loading. If you are concerned over players dying and rushing to return to the fight, most battles happen in sealed tight rooms, so if you see your faction losing, you can not retreat, you must be killed and thats that, so transitioning to the beginning of the OPS is not breaking anything. Maybe the respawn and return to the fight could not be avoided on the first mob, but so what?

 

When I first go to a planet, such as makeb an dothers who have an intermediary space station, I can agree that for the first time, you have to endure the totally pointless walk thru the corridor from the ship to the elevator the station (transition graphics again), and the nthru the station to the shuttle (transition graphics again), and then land on the station, run thru another area to elevator to main starport (transition graphics), run thru starport and finally you are outside. As I said, first time is just fine, and colorful, also needed to pick up missions along the way. But after that, why not allow at the starship door the same menu of choices as you have planet bound? Why not let me choose at my starship if I want to go to the space station, the inside of the starport, or even be placed just outside the starport? There is a point of playability and enjoyment over ridiculous "realism" in a fantasy game to begin with.

 

For Makeb, I should after I unlock gravity hook 7, have the ability to go from my starship directly to gravity hook 7 and let us assume that I went thru all the stops along the way... Think when you use the emergency passes, the shuttle did not drop you at the spaceport entrance, right? It took you straight into your destination and not inside the starport, so there is precedence for this in the game already.

 

Sue

[DOHboy]

Mmm...

 

While I see all vantage points to be valid to an extent, there is on occassion excessive transitioning that really has no need for.

 

For example, take OPS, you are defeated and forced to transition to fleet for no intelligent reason, and then transition to the beginning of the OPS, and then you travel to were you were defeated. It seems to me upon defeat, you should be transported to the beginning of the OPS, and do away with the fleet transition and needless loading. If you are concerned over players dying and rushing to return to the fight, most battles happen in sealed tight rooms, so if you see your faction losing, you can not retreat, you must be killed and thats that, so transitioning to the beginning of the OPS is not breaking anything. Maybe the respawn and return to the fight could not be avoided on the first mob, but so what?

 

When I first go to a planet, such as makeb an dothers who have an intermediary space station, I can agree that for the first time, you have to endure the totally pointless walk thru the corridor from the ship to the elevator the station (transition graphics again), and the nthru the station to the shuttle (transition graphics again), and then land on the station, run thru another area to elevator to main starport (transition graphics), run thru starport and finally you are outside. As I said, first time is just fine, and colorful, also needed to pick up missions along the way. But after that, why not allow at the starship door the same menu of choices as you have planet bound? Why not let me choose at my starship if I want to go to the space station, the inside of the starport, or even be placed just outside the starport? There is a point of playability and enjoyment over ridiculous "realism" in a fantasy game to begin with.

 

For Makeb, I should after I unlock gravity hook 7, have the ability to go from my starship directly to gravity hook 7 and let us assume that I went thru all the stops along the way... Think when you use the emergency passes, the shuttle did not drop you at the spaceport entrance, right? It took you straight into your destination and not inside the starport, so there is precedence for this in the game already.

 

Sue

 

As for ops, not being able to respawn at the start is part of the mechanic. If running HM or NM operations and you lose one person, more than likely it will result in a wipe of the ops and a restart. Otherwise you would simply respawn and rush to get back to the fight making death (and the 5 minute battle res) unnecessary.

 

As for the rest, loading screens are a necessary evil. The space platforms were part lore part work around for certain planets. Could things be tweaked, probably, but in my opinion most people don't understand what is really going on behind the scenes enough to know one way or the other. You can load LOTs of things once, or split it up into to half loads and do it twice.

[Zharik]

Ok, lets clear this up right now.

 

You get the same loading screens everyone else does.

 

It is not necessary to have so many loading screens between landing on certain planets considering the space port has no purpose IMO.

 

You do not share that opinion.

 

You can keep the rest of your hyperbole. Loading screens are for loading, posting boards are for posting, doors are for going....thanks for the tip sparky.

 

There are no loading screens between planet and orbital station...

[LordArtemis]

Assets are being loaded that are not needed I would expect.

 

The transition between our ship and some empty bases in orbit is not necessary. In fact, dailies prove that it is not necessary in a few cases.

[Sendrel]

Agree with the OP.

 

The loading screens, while not a deal breaker, can be on the annoying side.

[Warlord_Maliken]

Everything about this post makes sense and I agree with it. Thumbs up.

I would add that they should do SMALL restructuring on the planets, focusing on removing enclosed areas like 1-way valleys etc. The planets (im sorry, zones...) should be more open. The current planet setups hold strongly to KoToR1 and 2 planet styles but that was a single player game and in an MMO it really takes out a portion of would-be emersion. I am bored with WoW just like most people but I'd like to bring the game up in the regard that it indeed has amazing emersion value in its very OPEN worlds. The five continents in wow all have NO LOADING screens between the zones. Their forests do not have mountainous barriers or enclosed valleys, its all very open. You run into players randomly and frequently. It feels like a true virtual world. Wish swtor would have gone this route. They cant go back to 2007 and redesign their game but i think small changes like removing certain barriers on planets could be done.

[Deewe]

Agree with the OP.

 

The loading screens, while not a deal breaker, can be on the annoying side.

I don't know how many threads like this we had since beta... so many that it now gives me nausea.

 

Still they can't and don't really want ($$$ wise) mitigate this issue.

[LordArtemis]

It really is a shame if that is the case....removing some of the empty stations might be useful to some folks in the community.

[Starglitter]

Mmm...

 

In the case OPS nothaving to go to fleet upon defeat, to have to transition again to the OPS map, is not required and hardly an intelligent use of resources, all it is to provide a way to slow down the game. Not including the very first boss in every OPS, where you cold die and rush back to it, all others as soon as you enter their room, a force field, door or something activates that prevents entry or egress of the room, so the issue of dying, respawning and returning to the battle is mute.

 

I don't get the necessary evil over having to go thru the chaff parts, ship to docking corridor, all that happens is the world graphics of my ship goes puff, and are replaced with the corridor world graphics. When i take the elevator to enter the station proper, all that happens is the world graphics of the corridor goes poof and are replaced with the world graphics of the station; when I take the hsuttle to the spacepport, al that really happens is the space stations graphics are replaced with the landing bay world graphics of the spaceport and the rest of the world. Considering that all you doing is replacing a particular class of memory data stored i nyour ram, for another updated class of data to be stored in the same overall database area. You can see how this is corraborated, for when you are planet surface, you can click to go straight to your ship in space, there are no necessesary evil that forces you to go thru the spaceprot, bay corridor, space port, docking corridor, to ship. If you can go up the fast way, you should be able to go down the easy way, same mechanics in reality.

 

The main purpose of applying transitions in this manner is an archaic belief by developers to slow down the game, so players stay subscribed longer.

 

Sue

[LordArtemis]

It does seem, to me, like the additional assets loading are unnecessary, both as barriers to getting to the planets surface and as strains on the server.