6.0: Is this the rabbit out of the hat?

[chrisforester]

So 5.10 returns to Empire vs Republic. It also has storylines where you can (somewhat) betray your original faction, and many players doing this will be influenced by dark side/light side alignments (e..g your light side sorc decides to help the Republic or whatever.)

 

In expectations for 6.0, acknowledging the lack of resources/funds etc from the Devs means anything truly game changing like new vanilla class stories from 1-50 or even probably class specific stories is not gonna happen. Wish they were, but no.

 

So this is my bluesky thinking:

 

1. They introduce Faction Swapping for real (maybe following on from 5.10 but not needed.) This generates new interest in players, allows consistency of character (that dark side Jedi just joins the Empire) and income from paying for swaps other than the first one.

 

2. This allows the easy, cosmetic introduction of new classes. People have always wanted an Imperial Soldier but Bio are never gonna create the new 1-50 story. But you dark side Havoc squadders can desert! One cut scene, cosmetic reskin/rename of trooper abilities where needed and you're good to go. You're sworn in as an Imperial Stormtrooper. And the sweet new Imperial Trooper sets come on the Market. And there's no class balance issues because it's just a reskin. You imperial agents can also become SIS spies. Again, no class balance issues, just new looks and cosmetics reskins. Players wanting to start Stormtroopers/SIS from scratch start at lvl 70 without a class story at the beginning.

 

3. They need to shake up gearing/abilities etc. I think they are going to use "artifact weapons" from WoW Legion. Again, a few quick origin quests to claim your famous saber/blaster/whatever. Then all your CXP points are poured into unlocking new traits, abilities and cosmetic looks on the weapon. Relatively cheap to implement and plays to SWTOR folks pre existing weapon fetishes:)

 

TL DR I think we'll get faction defection, new classes based on cosmetics (Trooper, SIS) and an artifact weapon system in 6.0 Cheap and relatively easy to implement. Just posting for fun, shoot me down.

Edited January 14, 2019 by chrisforester

[VelvetSanity]

What about Smugglers who want to go pirate at the end of their class story?

[chrisforester]

What about Smugglers who want to go pirate at the end of their class story?

 

Would be fun if that could happen.

[Noerra]

I would not mind to be able to swap faction but what would be the actual content of this version of 6.0 ? What would people actually do in game to level these artifact weapons? What would be the story?

 

On my opinion strenght of the SWTOR vs other MMORPG's is the quality of the voice acted story, ability make choices and companions you can actually interact with. If SWTOR would throw away the only thing where they really outshine the competition i worry it would drive massive amounts of people away. Picking something from other game as your new major feature might not be good idea if it is not something that is your strenght to beginning with.

 

Funny thing is, WOW has been slowly trying to adapt things from SWTOR over the years by adding the followers who you can take as battle companions with you (which wasn't that interesting cause there was no interaction with them), doing class story (in Legion, also IMO wasn't even close to SWTOR quality) and now adding some player choices to the story (not many now but story live stream did say they will add more to places where it makes sense). This would be the time for SWTOR to really show once gain how the story and choices are done the right way, not steer away from it.

 

There is one thing i do want SWTOR to take from other games and preferably as fast as possible: faction shared tags in open world. Even when grouping for dailies there is often queus waiting for spawns of daily quest mobs etc. Shared tags also promote spontanious and easy groupplay, encourage to help other players in open world and make open world gameplay more positive feeling (by not having to compete for tags and mobs, having mobs or objects "stolen" from you).

[Macarrin]

I think I'd rather see a way to replace my class ship than a (in some cases) hard to see weapon. Something along the lines of trading event tokens for "scrap parts," weekly quests in ruined places or industrial battle grounds like Taris, Hoth, Corellia, Balmorra etc for different kinds of parts, some story quests like freeing a shipyard from pirates to earn "a favor", raiding the enemy of the moment for blueprints, supplies or whatever, and convincing the galaxies greatest shipwright to work for you. And at the end, choose from a few different ship designs, entirely cosmetic.

 

It keeps people busy, perhaps even pvpers if some of the parts can be earned through warzones and sold. Even from operations. It could even be a long term project, with new story stages added every quarter or so. The downside would be the initial investment in resources to set it up. It wouldn't even require touching the original content - use one of the story lockout points as a requirement (KotFE, KotET, JUS etc) so chapters 1-3 and companion stories would be done with the original ship or just bypassed.

 

I'd do it on a character or two. Heck, it could even be a legacy thing, like a smaller version of a guild flagship with less benefits like no summoning or supports but with decoration hooks, layouts based on the ship design chosen, that kind of thing. There's all kinds of mid-sized ships in Star Wars lore that could be used.

 

Well, that's my pipe dream for the week

[chrisforester]

I would not mind to be able to swap faction but what would be the actual content of this version of 6.0 ? What would people actually do in game to level these artifact weapons? What would be the story?

 

On my opinion strenght of the SWTOR vs other MMORPG's is the quality of the voice acted story, ability make choices and companions you can actually interact with. If SWTOR would throw away the only thing where they really outshine the competition i worry it would drive massive amounts of people away. Picking something from other game as your new major feature might not be good idea if it is not something that is your strenght to beginning with.

 

Funny thing is, WOW has been slowly trying to adapt things from SWTOR over the years by adding the followers who you can take as battle companions with you (which wasn't that interesting cause there was no interaction with them), doing class story (in Legion, also IMO wasn't even close to SWTOR quality) and now adding some player choices to the story (not many now but story live stream did say they will add more to places where it makes sense). This would be the time for SWTOR to really show once gain how the story and choices are done the right way, not steer away from it.

 

There is one thing i do want SWTOR to take from other games and preferably as fast as possible: faction shared tags in open world. Even when grouping for dailies there is often queus waiting for spawns of daily quest mobs etc. Shared tags also promote spontanious and easy groupplay, encourage to help other players in open world and make open world gameplay more positive feeling (by not having to compete for tags and mobs, having mobs or objects "stolen" from you).

 

Good points - I wasn't really addressing what the story would be (other than maybe returning to empire v republic) but yes i agree, SWTOR shines here compared to other MMOs. I was more thinking of what would be achievable and also affordable (hence the idea of new class stories of any length seems unachievable). I think SWTOR and WoW have certainly kept an eye on each other over the years!

[chrisforester]

I think I'd rather see a way to replace my class ship than a (in some cases) hard to see weapon. Something along the lines of trading event tokens for "scrap parts," weekly quests in ruined places or industrial battle grounds like Taris, Hoth, Corellia, Balmorra etc for different kinds of parts, some story quests like freeing a shipyard from pirates to earn "a favor", raiding the enemy of the moment for blueprints, supplies or whatever, and convincing the galaxies greatest shipwright to work for you. And at the end, choose from a few different ship designs, entirely cosmetic.

 

It keeps people busy, perhaps even pvpers if some of the parts can be earned through warzones and sold. Even from operations. It could even be a long term project, with new story stages added every quarter or so. The downside would be the initial investment in resources to set it up. It wouldn't even require touching the original content - use one of the story lockout points as a requirement (KotFE, KotET, JUS etc) so chapters 1-3 and companion stories would be done with the original ship or just bypassed.

 

 

I'd do it on a character or two. Heck, it could even be a legacy thing, like a smaller version of a guild flagship with less benefits like no summoning or supports but with decoration hooks, layouts based on the ship design chosen, that kind of thing. There's all kinds of mid-sized ships in Star Wars lore that could be used.

 

Well, that's my pipe dream for the week

 

ah, the ship idea is interesting! They do sometimes feel like an afterhought (and weirdly empty and echoey inside.)

[Rion_Starkiller]

...

 

I have basically given up hope on anything like this for SWTOR, but I love your optimism. It would be very cool if it happens.

Edited January 14, 2019 by Rion_Starkiller

[Ardrossan]

 

1. They introduce Faction Swapping for real (maybe following on from 5.10 but not needed.) This generates new interest in players, allows consistency of character (that dark side Jedi just joins the Empire) and income from paying for swaps other than the first one.

 

I don't think they will do this or number 2 It strains credibility in regards to the class story. Even moreso than playing a Cathar SW, I mean.

 

3. They need to shake up gearing/abilities etc. I think they are going to use "artifact weapons" from WoW Legion. Again, a few quick origin quests to claim your famous saber/blaster/whatever. Then all your CXP points are poured into unlocking new traits, abilities and cosmetic looks on the weapon. Relatively cheap to implement and plays to SWTOR folks pre existing weapon fetishes:)

 

This is possible. The major reason they might do it is WoW did it first, and that has always been this game's operating principle: Steal and reskin.

[Jesseriah]

The problem with all these "What 6.0 will bring"-Threads is, that no one can say for sure what will gonna happen. And the pure fact that Bioware never really "delivered" in the past (look on all the 1 min Companion-Cutscenes or the general lack on new content besides CM. And im talking about Flashpoints, Gear, overall Story or the possibility to have something to do in Swtor like puzzles or fun-things like they have in WoW for example.)

 

Everytime the playerbase had expectations Bioware came out and dissapointed us in some way. 5.10 is very good in my opinion, but besides playing the Story with my 10 alts there is, again, nothing else to do. I wish they would finally improve the legacy-system and give us the possibility to search for your own legacy-gear (like Darth Marr found the Lightsaber of XY (forgot the Sith's name) in one of the korriban-tombs), while this is just an example, i hope they would give the system overall a purpose at least. I wish they would make Swtor loveable again besides the Storycontent and most importantly the gosh darn CM.

 

We will always have to estimate what will come cuz there is also no information given from BW what we can expect. Nothing like MMO-Champion where you can see in full lenght what will come. At the end of the day BW will release an expansion and the playerbase will be dissapointed either way. And thats very sad in my opinion.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Jesseriah

[DavidAtkinson]

The problem on all these "What 6.0 will bring"-Threads is, that no one can say for sure what will gonna happen. And the pure fact that Bioware never really "delivered" in the past (look on all the 1 min Companion-Cutscenes or the general lack on new content besides CM. And im talking about Flashpoints, Gear, overall Story or the possibility to have something to do in Swtor like puzzles or fun-things like they have in WoW for example.)

 

Everytime the playerbase had expectations Bioware came out and dissapointed us in some way. 5.10 is very good in my opinion, but besides playing the Story with my 10 alts there is, again, nothing else to do. I would wish they would finally improve the legacy-system and give us the possibility to search for your own legacy-gear (like Darth Marr found the Lightsaber of XY (forgot the Sith's name) in one of the korriban-tombs). This could just be an example. I wish they would make Swtor loveable again besides the Storycontent and most importantly the gosh darn CM.

 

We will always have to estimate what will come cuz there is also no information given from BW what we can expect. Nothing like MMO-Champion where you can see in full lenght what will come. At the end of the day BW will release an expansion and the playerbase will be dissapointed either way. And thats very sad in my opinion.

 

Based on what we got post KOTET, I doubt it will be anything major... new level cap, new gear tiers we will 100% get.. Beyond that it's just speculation.

[Sir-steve]

I suspect it's setting the stage to wind down the game, which could take months or years to do depending on how they want to approach it (so this is not a 'the sky is falling' type response). By returning to a Republic vs. Empire construct you can add a DvL type scoring to declare a winner at server shut down....simillar to SWG.

[Morvoldo]

So 5.10 returns to Empire vs Republic. It also has storylines where you can (somewhat) betray your original faction, and many players doing this will be influenced by dark side/light side alignments (e..g your light side sorc decides to help the Republic or whatever.)

 

In expectations for 6.0, acknowledging the lack of resources/funds etc from the Devs means anything truly game changing like new vanilla class stories from 1-50 or even probably class specific stories is not gonna happen. Wish they were, but no.

 

So this is my bluesky thinking:

 

1. They introduce Faction Swapping for real (maybe following on from 5.10 but not needed.) This generates new interest in players, allows consistency of character (that dark side Jedi just joins the Empire) and income from paying for swaps other than the first one.

 

2. This allows the easy, cosmetic introduction of new classes. People have always wanted an Imperial Soldier but Bio are never gonna create the new 1-50 story. But you dark side Havoc squadders can desert! One cut scene, cosmetic reskin/rename of trooper abilities where needed and you're good to go. You're sworn in as an Imperial Stormtrooper. And the sweet new Imperial Trooper sets come on the Market. And there's no class balance issues because it's just a reskin. You imperial agents can also become SIS spies. Again, no class balance issues, just new looks and cosmetics reskins. Players wanting to start Stormtroopers/SIS from scratch start at lvl 70 without a class story at the beginning.

 

3. They need to shake up gearing/abilities etc. I think they are going to use "artifact weapons" from WoW Legion. Again, a few quick origin quests to claim your famous saber/blaster/whatever. Then all your CXP points are poured into unlocking new traits, abilities and cosmetic looks on the weapon. Relatively cheap to implement and plays to SWTOR folks pre existing weapon fetishes:)

 

TL DR I think we'll get faction defection, new classes based on cosmetics (Trooper, SIS) and an artifact weapon system in 6.0 Cheap and relatively easy to implement. Just posting for fun, shoot me down.

 

This is one reason why my agent hasent done Ossuss as i dont see the point of him joining republic when theres no real option there as from what i've heard your still going round killing Republic solders and still basically a imperial, its not like we can goto Corascant or anything lol, would love my agent to switch sides after what the empire did to him (no spoilers do agent story to understand).

 

and troopers that change sides would become mercanarys or bounty hunters so as you say it would be easy to do, but i dont see my agent becoming a smuggler or gunslinger though lol be nice for a new SIS character storyline. could team up with Theron (alive even if you left him to die, but i doubt a LS would do that, even my cruel sith sorc saved him) he is a good character.

if they actually let us transfer sides in 6.0 then its more understandable, but atm its just seems a waste

 

and god i hope they dont bring in Artifact weapons like wow, that Was a big mistake, and now wow has stupid rng armor sets which is even more stupid.

[HoloTweed]

What about Smugglers who want to go pirate at the end of their class story?

 

Smugglers/Bounty Hunters were always more of a Third Faction (Underworld) than anything else... so I'm not sure being a pirate (and I have a character totally devoted to piracy, eyepatch and all) wouldn't really matter from Republic to Empire, except the Empire likely has harsher penalties for getting caught.

 

I personally would LOVE a "third faction" option, even if it followed the "Cosmetic / In Name Only" the OP suggested... but not sure just an existing faction swap would really bring out the piracy aspect... plus, it seems like current storylines going forward are going to be Govt A or Govt B... we can only dream

[MandFlurry]

What about Smugglers who want to go pirate at the end of their class story?

 

I would love that, in this game We are supposed to be the leader, and Big Man or Woman on Campus, and the best 1 at that with the best team? I think it would be cool to be able to have more choice, but this is a lot more than 2 different choices that we have right now, this is more like 4 different choices in life, which is really great. But, i don't they can do it.

[phalczen]

Well, if you think about it, 2.0 was the last expansion with two unique story lines. 3.0-5.0 was all the same story for eveyone. At a minimum we will be getting two stories and best case scenario four (two loyalists per faction and two saboteur per faction), which would be equivalent or even better than 2.0.

[DawnAskham]

So 5.10 returns to Empire vs Republic. It also has storylines where you can (somewhat) betray your original faction, and many players doing this will be influenced by dark side/light side alignments (e..g your light side sorc decides to help the Republic or whatever.)

 

In expectations for 6.0, acknowledging the lack of resources/funds etc from the Devs means anything truly game changing like new vanilla class stories from 1-50 or even probably class specific stories is not gonna happen. Wish they were, but no.

 

So this is my bluesky thinking:

 

1. They introduce Faction Swapping for real (maybe following on from 5.10 but not needed.) This generates new interest in players, allows consistency of character (that dark side Jedi just joins the Empire) and income from paying for swaps other than the first one.

 

2. This allows the easy, cosmetic introduction of new classes. People have always wanted an Imperial Soldier but Bio are never gonna create the new 1-50 story. But you dark side Havoc squadders can desert! One cut scene, cosmetic reskin/rename of trooper abilities where needed and you're good to go. You're sworn in as an Imperial Stormtrooper. And the sweet new Imperial Trooper sets come on the Market. And there's no class balance issues because it's just a reskin. You imperial agents can also become SIS spies. Again, no class balance issues, just new looks and cosmetics reskins. Players wanting to start Stormtroopers/SIS from scratch start at lvl 70 without a class story at the beginning.

 

3. They need to shake up gearing/abilities etc. I think they are going to use "artifact weapons" from WoW Legion. Again, a few quick origin quests to claim your famous saber/blaster/whatever. Then all your CXP points are poured into unlocking new traits, abilities and cosmetic looks on the weapon. Relatively cheap to implement and plays to SWTOR folks pre existing weapon fetishes:)

 

TL DR I think we'll get faction defection, new classes based on cosmetics (Trooper, SIS) and an artifact weapon system in 6.0 Cheap and relatively easy to implement. Just posting for fun, shoot me down.

 

LMFAO

 

Not happening.

 

And if they tried anything like faction swapping or adding a new class, they'd totally f-up the game to a level not seen before.

 

Seriously, a month after a small update where they still can't fix set bonuses or basic companion functionality or a weekly mission and you believe they have the talent and resources to push out a complex expansion?

Edited January 15, 2019 by DawnAskham

[Jesseriah]

I also questioning myself why even the smallest fix or change BW has to make seems like a mammoth task for them.