A small list to improve SWTOR

[Darksplat]

Things to improve SWTOR

 

These are by no means a complete list on some of the subjects I have covered here, but it is an insight of my feelings towards SWTOR, ideas to improve and solutions were I could provide them. Some of the ideas I have spoken on other sources like podcasts etc, but was encouraged to post them on the forums by a BW employee. It is a long post take your time to digest it.

 

1. When people say they want class stories, they don’t want a ROtHC, Oricon, or SOR. They wanted the level 1-50, 4 separate class stories for each faction that can intertwine with each other. The class stories that were with those expansions were non existent or just terrible. They want the ability to join in the conversations and experience it all. Story will only keep players so far, as it was evident with the SWTOR 1.0 launch people consumed your content faster than you wanted and got bored, left the game and un-subbed. That is a lot of money that is not going back into the game; please don’t make the same mistake. I know that there is not going to be any PvE endgame ops this year, I can only hope that I don’t get disappointed enough with what ever you think is best for those people.

 

Although they haven't done class stories in 4.0 they have done a great story. It is just a shame that it is still consumed so quickly and is still very linear in such that all the outcomes are the same I have done it 3 times, once Light the other Dark and a mixture of the two. I still want to be able to help my friends - the ones that are still subbed just like I did in the 1.0 class stories.

 

2. Marketing needs to be upped and maintained: I constantly see TV ads for more mobile games than any other type of game. A great example is Game of War; lots can be learned from this type of advertising and needs to be applied to SWTOR. If you want to make money either via the CM or Subs then this needs to happen very quickly. You have an awesome live action ad ready to go called ‘Join the Battle’: this should be everywhere!

 

This stills needs work but I believe it is getting better. Dev/Marketing missed the boat with Anarchist Pack with the lightsabers that are in it and this should of been released when TFA was released no excuses here.

 

3. When you announced that you were adding a costume designer function to the game everyone was excited, because we had been asking for a simple way to go from our PvP gear to PvE gear when we were swapping between the 2 different types of gameplay. In the same conversation we were also asking for a multi-spec function, being if we save a particular spec (pre 3.0) for PvE and another for PvP we should be able to press a button and boom! It’s done. This function fell well short of the communities’ expectations of what we wanted and needs to be addressed by providing this function as a 2.0 version.

 

No change here our expectations are still not being met here

 

4. As an extension of point 3 the UI needs be both flexible and ridged at the same time, and I will explain what I mean here. I play a mando/merc DPS/Healer and I constantly switch disciplines depending on the fight either from Gunnery, Arsenal, and Healing. When I do I have a different UI for type of discipline either Healing or DPS. This includes basic raid frame setups and spacing and what is turned on or off depending on what I am doing. The UI Editor is doing a great job of this what it isn’t doing is keeping my abilities in the same spot on my quick bars. As well as the companion icon moves so do the ops frames. Now I setup my main Quick bar in the order of rotation I need to hit my abilities with. So for my DPS gunnery I use 1-6 and Arsenal 1-= buttons. So what I want is, when I choose a discipline my abilities should remain in the same positions as they were the last time I used that discipline (saving the position of abilities based on discipline), rather than having to manually reorder abilities. I’ve given an example of the current system below.

 

Healer to Arsenal DPS

 

a. Change discipline – Choose my utilities again

b. Change gear from Healing to DPS this might also include enhancements/mods as well depending on well geared you are

c. Change cell – when you choose Gunnery, Arsenal or Heals you must also manually change cell. This should instead be done automatically as there is little reason for a player switching to a cell that is not needed by their discipline.

d. Change UI

e. Change/Find Abilities and then place them on the quick bar

f. Build stacks for fight.

 

As you can see this is a lot just for a discipline change and I believe you can make the QoL change by making a save discipline/UI/Quickbar button which could be controlled by the costume interface or discipline interface. One of the main reasons/driving force is time, as the average age of the gamer gets older and older time becomes more of a commodity with so many things pulling us at the same time. So as you can see you can keep your flexibility with the current setup but be ridged with the save my discipline/UI/Quickbar button

 

If this change can be implemented then the time saved ingame means more time to have fun in SWTOR.

 

I believe this is actually worse as now I have to retrain some of my abilities first before I can even look at them to place them on my bar.

 

5. The recent Flashpoint announcement is a very GOOD change, and well done, but if you could expand on what you are doing on the achievement side of the house that would be great as well. We just need to know what structure you plan to employ with the old achievements and the new achievements.

 

I still believe this is still a good change there was no real announcement for the achievements

 

6. A legacy box that can hold 1 item that are bound in nature. Sometimes you get drops on your toons that don’t match that particular toon’s look or you might have a particular boss on farm and have a collection of ear, implant, relics or other token drops that would better suited or are needed on another toon. By having this function you can get those items to those toons that need them and be more competitive or have the look that you want.

 

Still waiting for this to happen it is needed you have earned the item so why are you not able to transfer the item? To expand this a little more if you have earned an item be a speeder or pet on one toon why can't we pay to have it unlocked for our other toons? An example of this would be the Helix Helipod or the Wings from NiM DF or any of the season RPVP rewards I have. If I have earn the achievement and lucky enough to get them, then I should be able to unlock it on any toon I wish as it might not be the toon I want it on. I am happy to pay say 700cc for the unlock and that means more money to you BW.

 

7. Now that we are moving into a 2 mode only operations play set, being story mode and hard mode (Hard mare), and you are now scaling content I think you are missing some key aspects that need to be addressed. How are you going to address the 89% SM warriors, 10% HM, and 1% NiM balance of the PvE Raiding community? Considering at least on the Harbinger Underlurker SM is still very buggy with red crosses for no reason

 

This has emotion in the answer

Your answer was very clear YOU ARE NOT GOING TO ADDRESS IT ALL. And what is worse is that you are going to take you time to fix any bugs that pop up in PVE, taking 2 months to fix bugs that are required to do mechanics in a fight is just so disappointing and you need a kick up the arse and a realignment of priorities of what you are as a game. Do you remember the Leg Slash PVP bug that was fixed in 2 days, 2 DAYS! this should demand the same response. This is the last insult to all remaining PVE Raiders this shows us that you do not want an MMO at all you are not serious about the IP you have in your hands.

 

8. GSF is good but can be better. When we first got our taste of space combat in SWTOR 1.0 it was space on rails, i.e. Rebel Assault, which I don’t mind but I can see how people actually want Tie Fighter, still regarded as the best flight sim ever with Wing Commander 3/4 a close second. Guess what, they still want Tie Fighter but more X-Wing v Tie. They were looking for a space sim (PvE) with the ability to Group Finder for PvE and PvP; that’s what we wanted. It looks like that SWBF3 will be the XvT that the Star Wars gaming community is begging for, and although this would be a win for EA it is a loss for BW. I hope with the recent comment that Bioware are looking at changing the old Space content that GSF will be fully realised to be both a PvE and a PvP space component of the game as this would be awesome

 

No change here

 

9. With PvP the current changes are a great step forward for PvP, and the actions you are taking against people who play in unfair ways are great, but it still hasn’t solved popping issues for non US residents (and for some US residents). I understand that PvP is dynamic and therefore you believe it is always new content but the community needs new maps and needs new ways to do PvP. With every planet or expansion you should be releasing new maps I would suggest a 4v4 and 8v8 at the same time or at the very least staggered a month or 2 apart. Open world PvP is dead and has been dead since the shut down the Ilum Western Ice Shelf. I do like what you did with the Gree but it is not the same. This needs to come back in some other form for those hard core PvPer’s as they require something to keep them interested, as the PvP content cycle is one of the worst in the game. Oricon was getting better but there needs to be a driving force which I believe is not there yet for more open PvP, as this reminds us of epic battles in the star wars universe.

 

This pains me and excites me the Rishi map should of been released with 3.0 or a few months after (no more than 3) the fact that it is coming out now means that you reassigned the combat team to help with 4.0 which is fine but priorities BW priorities. I am glad that at leat a 4.0 map is getting release within the 4.0 and it is a new type of PVP game that is great You have done well here very well a Little later than I would of hoped but still at least we are getting it.

 

10. Conquest needs to be redesigned and fully realised. First of all get rid of crafting in conquest as it is hurting conquests in more ways than you know. Everyone knows that if you have the cash then you can craft your way to victory, this is hurting the medium/smaller guilds with no light at the end of the tunnel to even be competitive in conquests. If you don’t want to remove it then you need to make it less important and do not let people be able to craft bomb their way on the leader board which is still happening.

 

THANKYOU BW you listened and fixed this WELL DONE! it is now more balanced.

 

Guild Ships need more functionality than a place to be pretty.

• One of the most important functional aspects currently lacking is the ability to gather and create an ops group while on a guild ship. As a gathering place it makes no sense nor is it obvious that such a restriction is in place; someone with no knowledge of this is likely to assume that they can create an ops group, only to be faced with an error the moment they try.

 

I believe this is fixed or is coming

 

• Guild ships need to be active, like when we invade a planet we are actually shooting the other ships in orbit. And have actual space battles were an EVENT could be everyone gathers on their G/Ship or Ship and then does a bit of a space battle, then do a ground battle as a conquest reward. Star wars has epic space battles in all of its movies and although SWBF3 looks like it could fill that part SWTOR could do it as well.

 

Still waiting for this. On a side note the recent guild changes that have been announced are great and look forward to using them as a GM if I have any members left.

 

11. General Things

 

a. DO NOT use the excuse of under resource/time we do not buy it at all. Get more resourcing, get more people to do what is required, you need to spend money to make money. You can only cut/be efficient to a certain extent.

b. A community announcement mechanism for community events with esports companies etc.

Still waiting for this

c. More guild management tools (calendar, member logs etc.)

Still waiting for this

d. More tabs in our inventory, and when you unlock these have a maximum amount that can be unlocked in the information text as well.

Still waiting for this although the stack limit was increased so this does help

e. Speed runs. This was a great idea but the big guilds will only win this in the end, which is great but you need to make it a knock out series, like tennis or something like that, not the quickest overall in one round. Teams need to feel like they have a chance to compete, and be rewarded for their efforts.

f. This is a big one: change your engine to the FROSTBITE or another engine; you know it has to be done. And quicker than you realise this that the engine is a major part of why you are under resourced or don’t have enough time you will be rewarded for your efforts. The case study is Final Fantasy online version 2, enough said

I am still a big believer in this

g. Drop support for WinXP move to Win 7 as a minimum with DX 11. I know you want SWTOR to be out their for the masses but its time to move on give users 6 months to make the change, and make sure you tell them about it, have a campaign just like you did with the Australian Servers (Dalborra) etc.

I am still a big believer in this

h. Cantinas are great, do more of them but do more of them outside of the US. It is an international game that requires an international presence.

COME TO AUSTRALIA! say around pax time it is also around the same time that has a race that stops the nation.....

 

12. Communication needs to improve by a factor of 100 at least; we are actually receiving less frequent information than ever before. What I mean with information is real information, not trailers or story blogs but actual real technical information. You have been working on this current expansion for at least 12-18 months and all we have from it is a few screenshots, of which 1 was hidden; a few story blogs, a website and 2 trailers.

 

We (the community) are on a knife’s edge with hype and we are a very tight coiled spring, ready to let go. Bioware, with the current expansion as well as from past experiences you’ve failed to meet expectations over and over again, and a lot of the community is tired of it. If you miss the mark, the bad taste left in our mouths will be like a sour bomb lolly and we will not return.

 

You can fix this with some easy solutions, being a monthly stream (only has to be 30 mins long) on the new expansion or anything that is happening in SWTOR. Show off your concepts, some game play if you have it, talk about the expansion. Talk about what has been happening in SWTOR in general, hell talk about other Star Wars products that you guys are looking forward to. But when you do take questions from the feed like you have in the past, answer them properly instead of dancing around the question, give a direct straight answer. This is always the best method of communication, always.

 

What can I say you listened to me I think the 2 a month stream is fantastic and the layout is working and as things go keep them coming. One more thing that can be added is rotate the community people though ALL 3 of them this will help your image sorry to say this but the manager is getting bad press give him a break and give it to tait for a month and the other guy that you hired for the month after that. Believe it or not as community reps you need to talk to us face to face as it were you can't hide behind your keyboard and metrics....

 

I like how you are going to other video bloggers in the Bioware sphere, but surely as a video blogger yourself give them some juicy stuff to show us, not something they can tell us, otherwise it is not as effective as you need it to be. You need to start to give other gaming blogs/youtubers access to your content and big ones at that, one that comes to mind is AngryJoe but there are many others to choose from. Reach out and you will be surprised.

 

Nicely done with you reach out here it was good to see some other you tubers out there spreading the word on your chapter 1 preview event. Well done,

 

The twitter and facebook accounts are a great feeder to your SWTOR content and reach far more people than any other medium, and believe that they are finally heading in the right direction, keep up the great work there. I know that some of the people in Bioware have been targeted by some other people in social media and I feel for them, I do, it is a terrible thing, but can we have more information/presence from other people in the SWTOR team. That would also help even if it is, like you have said before, behind your community managers posting the content on their behalf. The community loves it when the particular team or designer posts something; it also breaks up the constant posting from the community team.

 

This has improved a lot. I see at least 2-3 tweets a say from @SWTOR well done on picking up this easy marketing tool.

 

Cryptic tweets, I love these. Personally this gets my grey matter going with speculation the most. If the producers could even do these with the intention of clarifying the tweet at a later date (no more than a few days later) that is another way to keep the hype machine going.

 

Get more people to represent in your Community team. The Class rep was an awesome idea, it provided us with insight and the community was able to get some information, and sometimes answers on what was happening with their class and on SWTOR in general. Please start this up again.

 

I would still love to see this again but alas properly not until the new wazones are out and new Operations.

 

13. Customer Service

 

When someone submits a ticket to customer service and CS flags it as a bug, please don’t just respond that this is a bug and that the person needs to resubmit it as such. Get the CS rep to change the type and forward it onto the right department. This is what good customer service departments do; they take the burden off the customer and put it on them to find the solution.

 

When quoting “you are in breach of terms and conditions of SWTOR”, actually quote them and explain how they apply in that particular case. I have in the past been through your review process and it wasn’t the best experience for something I didn’t even know I was doing wrong. Although out of the process it was never explained to me how I should be conducting myself, only that I have conducted myself in the wrong manner. How do you expect people to change their behaviour if you do not tell them how to behave in accordance with your T&C’s? This needs to be more proactive in practice as it’s your standard that we go by. Hence why so many people think “whatever” (they don’t care) when it comes to taking part in exploits, as well as your attitude towards exploiting. Although I must admit you have come a long way, and please keep improving, you are getting better in this regard.

 

The final thing I want to talk about regarding CS is that they are overall doing a great job, and that I know from personal experience that it is a hard job to do, and I would like to extend my personal thanks to them. Keep it up!

Edited February 23, 2016 by Darksplat
Its been 6 months what did they do?

[PiiTarr]

Not going to lie, this was a case of tl/dr, so I skimmed the post and one thing caught my eye:

 

"a. DO NOT use the excuse of under resource/time we do not buy it at all. Get more resourcing, get more people to do what is required, you need to spend money to make money. You can only cut/be efficient to a certain extent."

 

You do realize they have no control over this whatsoever, right? EA determines the budgets for their various projects, allocates the funds, and then BW must work with what they've been given.

[DOHboy]

how long did it take you to type that all out...yesh.

[branmakmuffin]

how long did it take you to type that all out...yesh.

And just think, that was the small version.

[Darksplat]

Thanks for your comments so far

 

Not going to lie, this was a case of tl/dr, so I skimmed the post and one thing caught my eye:

 

"a. DO NOT use the excuse of under resource/time we do not buy it at all. Get more resourcing, get more people to do what is required, you need to spend money to make money. You can only cut/be efficient to a certain extent."

 

You do realize they have no control over this whatsoever, right? EA determines the budgets for their various projects, allocates the funds, and then BW must work with what they've been given.

 

You do realise that a budget is a fluid tool that changes with the needs of the company, sub company or department? EA Might say here is your overall budget but that doesn't mean that there is not mechanisms in place to request more funding or to change funding when required either back to EA or within BW itself. Business and governments alike do this daily and is part of their business rules it is a common practice

 

As for the length of the document yes it is a shortened version I had over 27 points in my original document some were merged some were deleted but it took my over a month on and off to get it to this stage with what I thought were important points and with over 140 views and I hope some BW employees looking at it they will take it as constructive as possible as it isn't all bad points if fact they are most good or fair with some solutions. Which most post don't have.

 

Cheers

[SplashNOR]

1. When people say they want class stories, they don’t want a ROtHC, Oricon, or SOR. They wanted the level 1-50, 4 separate class stories for each faction that can intertwine with each other.

 

True, this is what they've should done with RotHC and SoR, not made one-size-fits-all.

 

3. When you announced that you were adding a costume designer function to the game...

 

I'd think they should have added for the mainhands for the Sith/Jedi lightsabers, so that you could get specific stats from different crystals. This might remedy some of the things you want.

 

8. GSF is good but can be better. When we first got our taste of space combat in SWTOR 1.0 it was space on rails, i.e. Rebel Assault, which I don’t mind but I can see how people actually want Tie Fighter, still regarded as the best flight sim ever with Wing Commander 3/4 a close second.{QUOTE]

 

Then they need to tie this directly into the class missions PVE-style, so the player can get the best from both worlds.

 

c. More guild management tools (calendar, member logs etc.)

d. More tabs in our inventory, and when you unlock these have a maximum amount that can be unlocked in the information text as well.

 

Agreed to these points as well.

[PiiTarr]

You do realise that a budget is a fluid tool that changes with the needs of the company, sub company or department? EA Might say here is your overall budget but that doesn't mean that there is not mechanisms in place to request more funding or to change funding when required either back to EA or within BW itself. Business and governments alike do this daily and is part of their business rules it is a common practice

 

You have been very fortunate in your business experience then, as all of the large corporations for which I have worked have not had the kind of budget flexibility you describe.

[O_JohnnyBravo_O]

I think your Sig Block should be bigger

[Kaelric]

Things to improve SWTOR

 

 

 

1. When people say they want class stories,..... think is best for those people.

 

Too much work, better do another skin for a helmet who will milk money.

 

2. Marketing needs to be upped and maintained:.... this should be everywhere!

 

see above

 

3. When you announced that you were ..... as a 2.0 version.

 

nope it's better to make another cheap costume design who will milk money...

 

4. As an extension of point 3 the.... an example of the current system below.

 

Better ask for integration of addons, it will quickly solve the pb...oh noes ! they can't they make a system like that with this engine

 

Healer ... fight.

 

again see above

 

5. The recent Flashpoint ... new achievements.

 

Old achievement , or old entries codex are bugged , don't exept a change

 

6. A legacy box... look that you want.

 

you're asking for more item "bound to legacy" or changing the item bound to a player to be bound to his whole account. What about raid stuff or pvp ? there's no way it will happen, you need to earn the loot . So this feature will only concern random loot dropped by mob on planet....too much work see point 1

 

7. Now that we are moving ...with red crosses for no reason

 

There's 2 types of players in a mmo, casual and "hardcore" gamers. The hardcore are gamers who have a lot of free time or are experienced veteran. The change is in a good way imo as the game doesn't make difference betwenn hardcore gamer/veteran or whatever anymore

 

8. GSF is good but can be... space component of the game as this would be awesome

 

You are asking for a new game in the game and not a simple feature

 

9. With PvP the current cha... the star wars universe.

 

I agree, but it's extremely hard to provide pvp as same as tarren mill in vanilla WoW (and yeah illum was a great fiasco). As a reminder it happened because there was no bg as this time. The only way to make it happen is to make it really attractive even for a pve player, so making rewards for killing players

 

Oh crap , i will not respond to the wall of word you made after that...

 

Swtor is dead in 2012-2013, EA wanted to release the game far too soon , nearly 6 - 8 months before bioware estimation, a large majority of the players stopped their subscription when they realized the nightmare it was : bugged to death, no HARD or AMBITIOUS content (only Soa as this time). It's 2015 now , and the game didn't change after 3 years.

 

Oh yeah it passed free to play, and had 2 little addons the hutt and Revan. But what happened to the idea the community asked ? Addon ? hahaha ....Nope. Account Wide codex/achievement ? only achievment and it's bugged, expecially the first planets. Far Less Bugs ? yeah ...not just joking nope , a lot of them are still here. Universal CD to 1s (or less) for making the game more dynamic ? guess what ? no. Etc etc...

 

Bioware is now making Mass effect andromeda and dropped swtor to a little part of their company, for maintenance purpose essentially, the game is know as FailTor , you know, because they wanted to make a mmo who can rival with WoW ..in 2015 even FF14 is better. So don't exept overwhelming change in the game as you suggest, it's a mmo F2P where the story is great, in the star wars universe but the end content is boring and lacking

[tjmck]

Stop saying change the engine, people think that it's a matter of simply shutting down the game over night porting everything over and boom goes the dynamite...it's not. Honestly i'd just be happy if they could get the high end graphics working again lol. Edited August 20, 2015 by tjmck

[QetraFussion]

/following

/signed

[LosevV]

Stop saying change the engine, people think that it's a matter of simply shutting down the game over night porting everything over and boom goes the dynamite...it's not. Honestly i'd just be happy if they could get the high end graphics working again lol.

 

To do it they will need ACTUALLY do something with their code. Understand and rewrite code from past teams (Why do you think so many bug with start planet and why they never touch them?). New engine is not impossible, if what i read about EVE they is true CCP games changed engine several times. But to make game running onto new engine they will NEED to work. But guess what?

Too much work, better do another skin for a helmet who will milk money.

[/Quote]

Edited August 20, 2015 by LosevV

[azudelphi]

To do it they will need ACTUALLY do something with their code. Understand and rewrite code from past teams (Why do you think so many bug with start planet and why they never touch them?). New engine is not impossible, if what i read about EVE they is true CCP games changed engine several times. But to make game running onto new engine they will NEED to work. But guess what?

 

But guess what? The people who make hats are entirely different teams from the people who maintain the code for the client and server...

Edited August 20, 2015 by azudelphi

[LosevV]

But guess what? The people who make hats are entirely different teams from the people who maintain the code for the client and server...

 

That was sarkasm.

P.S. And the one who add this hats inside game do not work with code?

[azudelphi]

That was sarkasm.

P.S. And the one who add this hats inside game do not work with code?

 

Almost positive no. They don't. Much like you don't hire a painter to build the frame for a house just because he can create a nice accent for a wall...

[LosevV]

Almost positive no. They don't. Much like you don't hire a painter to build the frame for a house just because he can create a nice accent for a wall...

 

Except thing that they are painters in this scenery. And they open code to do it. Just little row of text inside code, but they still working with it.

BTW when they trying to fix something they touch code. Or else there will be no new bug.

Edited August 20, 2015 by LosevV

[XiamaraSimi]

Except thing that they are painters in this scenery. And they open code to do it. Just little row of text inside code, but they still working with it.

BTW when they trying to fix something they touch code. Or else there will be no new bug.

 

The original devs that started the game are long gone. The team we have now dont like messing with the code any more then they have to.

 

The reason we got an entirely new system in strongholds -instead- of letting us customize our ships? They said the ships coding is such a disaster from the prior team that they dont want to go anywhere near it in fear of breaking 97 things while trying to tweak one thing.

 

Im not sure what you think is going on, but its nowhere near as simple as "open c++, and add in a new string of command prompts"

 

They cant go back and reinvent the game from the ground up, just usnt going to happen.

[Zoom_VI]

Why is it that the people that know the least about programming and software development are always the ones with the most opinions about it?

[azudelphi]

Except thing that they are painters in this scenery. And they open code to do it. Just little row of text inside code, but they still working with it.

BTW when they trying to fix something they touch code. Or else there will be no new bug.

 

I... I am at a loss here... because while I know I am no expert on game development, I can say with a solid amount of certainty that everything you said here is way off base.

 

Edit: This is my best guess on how things actually work for getting a hat into the game.

The hats are made in a 3D Modeling software suite. They create a mesh and apply a texture to it.

The hats' 3D model files are added to the game's file structure; an object that the game engine can recognize and other parameters that the game requires are added to it.

The hats are then made available in game to the players.

 

At no point does the designer do any coding or programming.

 

Mr Zoom_VI or Malastare probably know better than I though.

Edited August 20, 2015 by azudelphi

[Bakakiba]

The OP must be from Texas. Everything is bigger here.

[LosevV]

The original devs that started the game are long gone. The team we have now dont like messing with the code any more then they have to.

 

Read my prevision message please.

 

To do it they will need ACTUALLY do something with their code. Understand and rewrite code from past teams (Why do you think so many bug with start planet and why they never touch them?).

[LosevV]

Why is it that the people that know the least about programming and software development are always the ones with the most opinions about it?

 

I agree, I'm not super pro develoment who created MMO. I don't know how this game was created, what language they used. But Bioware getting money (Incredibly amount from CM) for development this game. For support and improve this game. New engine can be done in 2-3-4-5 month by team who was hired for this by Bioware and who working parallel with current team. This what they can do for subscriber and other players who don't have i7 Skylake and GTX980 Ti.

[Kaelric]

The problem with swtor is his engine, it's a good engine who can make a lot of ppl play together and raid with 16 players without too much pb because of graphical quality, but in the other way there's a lot of limitation : the dev at that time didn't want to bother with WoW 's biggest problems as BoT and script kiddies so they limited a lot the client's interactions with server (no addons, no scripts not even a simple macro).

 

This was one of the biggest flaw they could make at this time , indeed, not only it didn't prevent cheater or hacker to speedhack or fly or whatever but in the same time it prevented the game from being competitive in pvp so that mean Esport. They can't change the engine, because as said previously, part of the team don't work with them anymore or switched to andromeda and even if they wanted to patch it for changing some behavior they couldn't : too much work and no ressources.

[Kaelric]

Another thing was the GCD of swtor.....too damn long it's 1.5 seconds. it makes the game slow, expecially for hand to hand fighters. they did it for 2 reasons : the major one was interaction client/server and the others one is because at this time the ppl who wanted the most swtor to come was roleplay gamers dressed up in wizard hats and whatnot so they can see the animations of their attacks with lightsaber. Now in 2015 is this still valid ?

 

The biggest change they could make is a complete redo of the craft, it's boring and useless imo.

[Mubrak]

I... I am at a loss here... because while I know I am no expert on game development, I can say with a solid amount of certainty that everything you said here is way off base.

 

Indeed. Actually there are:

- people who make hats (in a 3D modelling software)

- people that add the hats into the game data (in software similar to the editors for TES games, Fallout3 or NWN)

- people who make the engine show the game data (In a text editor writing code)

- people who write an engine that handles the boring hardware and server details for the former ones.

 

Asking a modeller to improve the engine is like asking a painter to improve the composition of cement. It may work, if he's interested and you pay for his training in construction chemistry, but then it would take forever to build your house AND have it nicely painted.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Mubrak