Disappointed with LiveStream

[MandFlurry]

[/i]

I just dont understand you people. I really dont. Everytime they show us something about the xpac all you do is whine they havent showed us anything new. If its nothing new to you then obviously you have been looking at data mined info or just got lucky in your guessing game about whats going to happen. Why do you people want them to disclose everything about the xpac to you before it even goes live. I mean cmon, if they told you every little detail about the xpac before it goes live what fun would it be to play it.? I can see it now, they give you every little bit of info about it before it goes live because you constantly demand it, then when it does go live youre going to whine the xpac sucked because its "nothing new". Give me a friggin break people, a majority of the fun involved in an xpac is exploring the new content and mechanics for the first time. It makes the game fresh again. There is renewed purpose in playing the game again. But no, you want to know every minute detail about the xpac before its even released. To me thats like knowing what every Christmas present is before you even open it. If thats the case, why even wrap it.

 

There??

Edited August 27, 2015 by MandFlurry

[Falensawino]

If I've learned anything from silently reading posts from here and Reddit, it's that people just LOVE to complain about everything. The stream was great. My heart nearly skipped a beat when I heard that any companion can re-spec to a tank, DPS, or healer. That's awesome. Honestly, if that's all we learned from the stream, I would be just fine. It seems like a lot of people just can't be patient and wait for more information, or even better: trying out the expansion for yourself when it comes out, instead of whining about it beforehand.

How can a dual lightsaber wielding Lady Lana Beniko spec as a healer? That doesn't really make sense considering she would be classed as a marauder. But, hey, if she can heal and dual wield, that's great news. Edited August 27, 2015 by Falensawino

[ShieldProtection]

Another disappointing "reveal" by BioWare.

 

Eric and company need to watch a Blizzard or ArenaNet press conference. You can tell us about systems and show us things without spoiling story.

 

You could have explained the raid and pvp gear with the Mastery and Crit/Surge changes. You could have shown how we get non-story companions back. Fans don't care about your story hype, they care about the technical parts.

 

gosh darn I'm actually care about story hype. I'm also actually liked ME3's ending. what now? are you

going to murder me?

 

oh by the way: ArenaNet (GW2) is a fully pvp focused MMO. BioWare (SWTOR) is a fully story focused MMO.

You can't compare different genre/different style games.

 

Take a look this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilty

Edited August 27, 2015 by ShieldProtection

[isimanage]

Those People screaming for CC.

 

That was kinda annoying.

[Master_ivar]

I´m new to SW TOR and still comfortably in the "rose-tinted glasses" phase, but this reveal left a bad aftertaste.

 

First, the cinematics and storytelling are great, it was all news to me as I got better things to do than scour all spoiler and data mine threads 24/7.

The bad part was the "streamlining" (aka. dumbing down) of companion roles. Everybody can be everything even when it breaks your very own class system?

 

That´s just bad game design AND storytelling.

 

If you want to create a frikken console star wars game, then do this somewhere else in a better game engine.

But don´t kill of the most important part of an MMO, namely the class system. Having your companions ignore it is the first step.

Though from what I heard so far about the streamlining of the attribute system (by abolishing it), you´re well on your 2nd and 3rd steps already?

 

Still hoping everything will be good though. But the constant marketing speak doesn´t bode well.

 

ALSO this whole chapter concept reminds me SO MUCH of Guild Wars 2´s catastrophic living story. They wasted almost 2 years on this crap and thus delayed a proper fleshed out expansion well into their 3rd.

Please learn from other people´s failures and don´t repeat them!

Edited August 27, 2015 by Master_ivar

[Karkais]

The bad part was the "streamlining" (aka. dumbing down) of companion roles. Everybody can be everything even when it breaks your very own class system?

 

That´s just bad game design AND storytelling.

How does that 'break' anything? Nowhere in the class story/cutscenes does it say certain companion has a certain role. Thats just game mechanics. The companions will still do what they were doing before, only now you aren't forced to use a specific companion when you are in need of a specific role.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Karkais

[Falensawino]

If you want to create a frikken console star wars game, then do this somewhere else in a better game engine.

Guaranteed never to happen, Hero Engine won't be ported to console, no one will take the time and energy to convert this game to console. It runs bad enough on high end pc hardware, consoles would fry.

The bad part was the "streamlining" (aka. dumbing down) of companion roles. Everybody can be everything even when it breaks your very own class system?

 

That´s just bad game design AND storytelling.

 

But don´t kill of the most important part of an MMO, namely the class system. Having your companions ignore it is the first step.

Though from what I heard so far about the streamlining of the attribute system (by abolishing it), you´re well your 2nd and 3rd steps already?

Pretty sure that was only announced for companions, and companion scaling. The primary attribute (cunning,aim,strength,willpower) is just being retitled and retrofitted universally. It's not removing anything, it's only making gear reusable and reducing loot based restrictions.

 

Renaming the primary attribute does not kill the class system. It just makes the job of getting people the gear they want less of a hassle.

 

 

I'm sure there are database benefits to it too, less items in the database segregated by the old named primary stats (cunning,aim,strength,willpower) taking those out of the database should improve server overhead and performance somehow lol. If the stat wasn't retitled to primary, every future piece of gear would have to be titled to match the named primary stat (cun,aim,str,wil) that eats megabytes of data just to hold those variables. (I'm not a game devs) I don't know the technical specifics but renaming cun,aim,str,wil to primary stat was a good move.

 

 

ALSO this whole chapter concept reminds me SO MUCH of Guild Wars 2´s catastrophic living story. They wasted almost 2 years on this crap and thus delayed a proper fleshed out expansion well into their 3rd.

Please learn from other people´s failures and don´t repeat them!

Guild Wars is a different type of game. Bioware is a storytellers tale, this episodic release schedule could work really well for SWTOR, where guild wars didn't have the audience to care about a personal story. Edited August 27, 2015 by Falensawino

[Master_ivar]

How does that 'break' anything? Nowhere in the class story/cutscenes does it say certain companion has a certain role.

Huh? The devs explain it themselves. And you´re talking about it yourself, right in the next sentence..

Thats just game mechanics. The companions will still do what they were doing before, only now you aren't forced to use a specific companion when you are in need of a specific role.

It´s BAD new game mechanics.

The companions right now have enough role choices and most content I encountered so far is a face roll anyway.

If I´m not mistaken, people all run around with the Evok (and HK ) because they are so OP allowing you to solo pretty much anything. That´s a balancing issue and doesn´t warrant an immersion breaking total abolishing of companion class roles.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Master_ivar

[hanebuch]

The bad part was the "streamlining" (aka. dumbing down) of companion roles. Everybody can be everything even when it breaks your very own class system?

 

That´s just bad game design AND storytelling.

I disagree, I don't like the current design and like the new design a lot better. In the old design you either have a suboptimal companion or need to choose a companion , because of his role. Imo Companion roles work much better if you have a bigger team.

Also companions never really followed the class system and it's not bad game design you just don't like the new design.

I'm indifferent to the item changes, I won't change companions so I don't need to equip all companions, but I also have no problem with having equipment not influencing stats.

Edited August 27, 2015 by hanebuch

[Master_ivar]

Guild Wars is a different type of game. Bioware is a storytellers tale, this episodic release schedule could work really well for SWTOR, where guild wars didn't have the audience to care about a personal story.

Hmm, actually you´re quite wrong there. GW2 is also very much a story driven game. Personal AND global story, which they tried to tell in this episodic "living story" mode.

The problem was simply that the content was bad, as it rehashed the same game design concepts over and over and even deleted content every 2 weeks when the next "episode" was launched.

 

This is the trap I very much hope SWToR will avoid.

 

Thanks though on alleviating my worries about the new attribute system, we´ll see how it pans out.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Master_ivar

[Karkais]

Huh? The devs explain it themselves. And you´re talking about it yourself, right in the next sentence..

It´s BAD new game mechanics.

The companions right now have enough role choices and most content I encountered so far is a face roll anyway.

If I´m not mistaken, people all run around with the Evok (and HK ) because they are so OP allowing you to solo pretty much anything. That´s a balancing issue and doesn´t warrant an immersion breaking total abolishing of companion class roles.

 

I asked you to explain why its 'bad'? There are no role choices currently. If you need a healer, you take healer companion. If you need tank, you take tank. WHAT companion it is is irrelevant in this context. Its not something you can choose, until KOTFE. It is rather incomprehensible to claim that it breaks something, when no functionality is actually taken away from the game. Roles may give the current companions a bit of flavor, but personally I dont consider it a big deal.

 

This also has nothing whatsoever to do with immersion, since nowhere does it define what the companions are supposed to be able to do. Its much more immersive to have the companions be capable of doing multiple tasks. Imagine you get shot at and your soldier friend says: 'sorry, Im no healer, I dont know how to use this medpack. I guess you need to bleed to death, cant be helped.' (keep in mind that companions already have essentially three 'modes' as toggles)

Edited August 27, 2015 by Karkais

[Heromofo]

It's just more proof that Bioware doesn't care about us the community at all. If they did they would have taken the questions being thrown at them. They would have done what the player base has asked and turned around and start putting in more raids, more fp's more pvp. How many times do we need to repeat this WE DON'T WANT STORY WE WANT GROUP CONTENT!

 

This is why FFXVI is killing just about every MMO on the market right now. They show a year plan of what they want to do with the game, how they are going to do it and work on it. Bioware can't even come out with a new pack in the cartel market. This is why Blizzard has tons of subs returning to WoW after showing off Legion and Bioware are losing even hardcore fanbois to other games.

 

Know what I was willing to give this game another shot but it's clear this is looking worse then the NGE and that's saying a lot.

 

Cant please everyone bud i for one love the look of KOTFE and Love Story above all else.

 

Really well done BW and EA cant wait.

[Master_ivar]

This also has nothing whatsoever to do with immersion, since nowhere does it define what the companions are supposed to be able to do. Its much more immersive to have the companions be capable of doing multiple tasks. Imagine you get shot at and your soldier friend says: 'sorry, Im no healer, I dont know how to use this medpack. I guess you need to bleed to death, cant be helped.'

That´s what health packs are for.

And it has everything to do with immersion.

If the companions are such ÜBER guys that they can do everything whenever they choose, then who the frick is the hero here?

 

Companions are supposed to be a HELP, not make you a complete party that allows facerolling an on-level flashpoint or heroic area by yourself.

So far all companions I encountered had also a DPS option next to their "assigned" role. That should be well enough flexibility and if they were bad at it then that is a balancing issue.

 

This is still supposed to be an MMO, remember?

If your chosen class and companion role stymied your gameplay so badly then one is supposed to go make some friends to help out.

[Draqsko]

(keep in mind that companions already have essentially three 'modes' as toggles)

 

They only have 2 stances, since the third is called "stand there like an idiot and watch me die" stance.

[Kurkina]

A smattering of sarcastic responses for (hopefully) comic relief, and perhaps to jibe some of you story-lovers:

 

All the story related stuff is gonna be good by default cus it's Bioware.

 

You mean like the directionless SoR culminating in the Ziost fiasco?

 

I hope they withhold some stuff.. I want a little mystery to discover when i play the game.

 

Biggest mystery is why anyone with an existing subscription will continue to fork out cash month after month for what amounts to a drop in a bucket.

 

Five more "stable" minutes, to establish why this conflict/ stakes are epic, would have done wonders.

 

But no one knows why it's epic, not even BW, because the story is not finished, they don't know where they are going with it.

 

Some of the Interviewers that talked to the Devs are of course from Germany and Czechoslovakia.

 

No such country anymore, it's the Czech Republic. Slovakia is independant. Kind of like BW and EA .... NOT.

[Warrgames]

That´s what health packs are for.

And it has everything to do with immersion.

If the companions are such ÜBER guys that they can do everything whenever they choose, then who the frick is the hero here?

 

Companions are supposed to be a HELP, not make you a complete party that allows facerolling an on-level flashpoint or heroic area by yourself.

So far all companions I encountered had also a DPS option next to their "assigned" role. That should be well enough flexibility and if they were bad at it then that is a balancing issue.

 

This is still supposed to be an MMO, remember?

If your chosen class and companion role stymied your gameplay so badly then one is supposed to go make some friends to help out.

 

Honestly companion being able to choose any role add more to immersion than breaks it. If I want to ran with my companion as tank on my merc I have 2 choice Skadge or Bliz. Neither one fits into my die hard Mando system. With the new system Torian can be tank. If you don't see Skadge as healer than don't play him as healer. You pick the role so if they are in a role that you don't see them in its YOUR FAULT your immersion is broken. People like you love to throw out immersion breaking when you don't like something. Even though its you who are breaking your immersion.

 

 

On topic:

I was very happy with the stream. No spoilers and answered my question about companions, that we keep all of them outside of the story mission. The only thing that would have made the stream better was if they told me I could dress my companion the way I want and no longer had to worry about gearing other companions for story mission. Wait they told me that too.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Warrgames

[Rafaman]

Honestly companion being able to choose any role add more to immersion than breaks it. If I want to ran with my companion as tank on my merc I have 2 choice Skadge or Bliz. Neither one fits into my die hard Mando system. With the new system Torian can be tank. If you don't see Skadge as healer than don't play him as healer. You pick the role so if they are in a role that you don't see them in its YOUR FAULT your immersion is broken. People like you love to throw out immersion breaking when you don't like something. Even though its you who are breaking your immersion.

 

 

On topic:

I was very happy with the stream. No spoilers and answered my question about companions, that we keep all of them outside of the story mission. The only thing that would have made the stream better was if they told me I could dress my companion the way I want and no longer had to worry about gearing other companions for story mission. Wait they told me that too.

 

Agree. Despite the technical issues, we got a good bit from this livestream. I'm liking what I'm hearing and seeing so far. I hope we get another look at a few non spoiler things, like the new hub area etc.

[MandFlurry]

I was gonna say Czech Republic, but these days you never know what country in Eastern-Europe can change their name. But, as a guy that used to do Analysis for Western and Central Europe, then do stuff on Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania just as we were hoping the Cold-War was ending. I should know better, sorry.

 

I'm EurAsian to lol, but i can't keep up on foreign stuff like i used to heheh.

 

Back to some of the Questions at hand. From what the Devs have been pretty consistant with telling others, i'm pretty sure Eric also said this to. Is that we would have the Companions that we were Closest to, as far as them a shoe in for them staying our Companions.

 

Of course the Companions that we so-called cheated on, i heard that we would of course have to make our decisions on who we really want as a love interest of course.

 

I say so-called cheated, because Facts are that in the final phase of Closed Beta and even a bit before then, the Devs decided that Our choices would Not impact our Companions at all in the way it will be happening in the Revised SWTOR-KOTFE. They decided to throw out most of the stuff that either we could kick a Companion, or our Companions leave us, because Facts are we were losing too many Companions, and had to ask for the Team to give us back the Companions we kicked, or other way around.

 

Guys, It Just Wasn't Working. /rant off So that's 1 reason why i un-subbed in 4 months from now, is because of the Fact that the Devs Officially tossed out our being able to kick our Companions off of a 500 story Coruscant bldg or Air-lock. /figure of speech...

 

Now you know why some ppl like me have said KOTFE is really a different game, among other things. Now all these secret rendezvous we had............................ Just because our Women drugged us and unknowingly used the Force to make wild passionate love to us poor innocent boys is wrong. /joke on the last part there lol.

 

But really, for the Devs to shove this stuff down our throats, after playing this game 5 or more yrs isn't right to me at least. Ppl aren't really pizzed off now, but just wait til' KOTFE hits lol.

 

 

EDIT: I think to many ppl, and maybe me because of being in Beta, is that if a Player is able to Kick almost every Companion, or them able to leave us, then it Perfectly makes sense that whatever Companions we have left, be able to do everything really.

Edited August 27, 2015 by MandFlurry

[jedip_enguin]

The stream was a laugh riot, watching a developer as prestigious as Bioware backed by a publisher as big as EA fail to be able to even stream for an hour (something cleavage baring camgirls on Twitch manage to do with no real support) was hilarious and saddening all at once.

 

The repetition of 'Choices that matter' and the guy furiously spamming the space bar to skip back to the part they had reached in the story were particular highlights, although the crappy game performance before the stream locked up tight did provide a certain level of authenticity to the experience

 

All the while they managed to speak without saying anything (largely) of value.

 

The part where the head dev fellow referenced Shamwow and obliquely encouraged us to associate the stream and their product with something as cheap and nasty shopping channel garbage was astounding too (though in fairness infomercials clearly have higher production standards than EA/BW)

 

I despair, honestly I do.

Edited August 27, 2015 by jedip_enguin

[ForceWelder]

The community has been loud and clear. We want story, period. That is what this game thrives on. The collective "eh" from the community to the no new raids reveal several months back is obvious:

a) not many players left

b) many new or returning players joined

c) even the message boards aren't that populated with people complaining about the lack of raids

 

It truly seems most people don't really care that much about this type of play when they instead can get story.

 

All I have to comment on with this is that on PVP servers, which is more important? PVP or group raid content?

 

The answer I would give is PVP otherwise that player base would be on PVE server.

 

If there is a problem with the game, it isn't with the lack of group content. It is with the development of PVP. The complete lack of new content, the complete lack of class equality in 4 v 4, and the lack of response by the devs from the player base who have more than willingly offered suggestions and ideas on how to correct these issues for months (if not years).

 

What we get instead is FOTY and some classes being all but denied a fair opportunity in arena style combat.

Edited August 27, 2015 by ForceWelder

[Max_Killjoy]

How does that 'break' anything? Nowhere in the class story/cutscenes does it say certain companion has a certain role. Thats just game mechanics. The companions will still do what they were doing before, only now you aren't forced to use a specific companion when you are in need of a specific role.

 

And when a specific companion makes NO SENSE in a particular combat role?

 

Skadge the healer? Mako the tank? Really?

[MandFlurry]

Ppl here probably won't believe this, but I actually got excited for KOTFE lol, true.

 

What made me really angry is the Fact that the Devs and even Eric did a total 180 on what they had confirmed on stuff as Fact on a big deal of Confirmed stuff that they themselves Confirmed, and went On-air and did that 180 and in a Big way Lied to our faces about all these things that they had confirmed about KOTFE. That angered me, lying to our faces like that

 

EDIT: Yeah what a Lot of ppl, Including the Devs really are not caring enough about is the PvP server and how much ppl really love Pvp. It's rediculous about how the Pvp ppl have been treated, and I know that EAWare has lost a lot of Subs because of that, and will lose more.

Edited August 27, 2015 by MandFlurry

[MandFlurry]

[nvm................ Edited August 27, 2015 by MandFlurry

[Max_Killjoy]

The "cover art" for KotFE should be Lando, with his quote "This deal's getting worse all the time..."

[hanebuch]

And when a specific companion makes NO SENSE in a particular combat role?

 

Skadge the healer? Mako the tank? Really?

 

Easy solution, don't use skadge as a healer. You are not forced to use any companion in any role. If you think a companion works only in a specific role, only use him in this role.