JayForerunner Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 Thanks to the Support Ticket for pointing me to this forum. There are ideas stirring in my head, both positive and negative, so allow me to share all of them in one definitive location. I hope nobody minds if I create a potentially long post. Make sure you have time before diving in. And if any of the actual staff at Bioware or similar see this, then 1) keep up the hard work, and 2) I wish I could contribute (proper job, but I wouldn't be surprised if my junior skills are inadequate for your senior demands). First, I absolutely love the Heroic Moment ability. The Legacy Powers are an absolute treat, and that's the #1 benefit (in my opinion) for the entire game mechanic of Legacy. Seeing each new character adding to that toolbelt makes it feel like I get more and more powerful. Understandable or no, it's sad that it lasts for 2 minutes with a cooldown of 5 minutes (and that's with the max companion benefits, since you can only get one class worth of companions to improve those cooldowns; more than one, they do not stack). What I wouldn't do to have unlimited Heroic Moment, like just as a permanently passive buff akin to how the class buffs have been changed. (Yeah, this means Legendary Players can't pass off their 4 stack onto new players, but that's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept.) Speaking of Legacy, just from puttering around the main station / social hub of faction fleet, it feels like half the players I encounter are of "Legendary" status. Understandably, when developments have improved the emphasis on completing the main storylines. But that also means it's going to be very hard to stand out from the crowd - especially since I have no control over the way the story actually develops. My time across multiple MMOs has taught me that it's less about leaving your mark on the world and more about visiting a digital amusement park. Elite Dangerous might've had the best illusion of mattering, but I conquered that enough to prove how false it is in recent memory. Most of Legacy is just cosmetic (i.e. species selection) or convenience (i.e. installing facilities on your ship), and while that's cute, it also emphasizes why I feel like Heroic Moment is the #1 benefit. There's not a lot in their menu that translates to "This will make your character stronger and/or cooler." Which is a shame because Legacy seems like, with well-crafted design, could be the best outlet for "You've worked hard in this game world, so here's where you get to show it off and become really capable for the effort as well." Making Datacrons legacy/account based was absolutely a good step in that direction. But I feel like that should only be the start of it. For that single-player space combat (which is a wonderful break from the hotkey piano of the main game's combat), it'd be neat to have something similar to the Datacrons, to make that ship more capable across the whole Legacy, without worrying about the gear of the ship itself. (Galactic Starfighter I'm sure sounds awesome on paper, but I anticipate it involves Player-vs-Player, and to that I am 110% not interested personally, so I wouldn't even attempt to touch that.) Plus, after having 8 characters completed for "Legendary" status, what good are the other character slots? I mean, if you want to decorate your Family Tree in a cute arrangement, I guess you can do that...but again, that's a cosmetic factor that only you get to see, so it feels sort of pointless. I absolutely like the idea of more characters ~ more power, especially in a "New Game Plus" context, which is what makes this different from other MMOs. Considering there's a theoretical hard-cap of 100 characters in your single Legacy...why would you need any more than 8?! Gameplay, just at large...let me say, if it were repackaged as a single-player experience, this could've easily been marketed as "Knights of the Old Republic 3". And there have been strides made to that direction, since I just had a character take on a low-level Heroic area clad in only underwear. The things we have to do to try and stand out. 😛 But mindlessly tapping 2 or 5 for all combat or just generic "click on the thing" gets incredibly repetitive in short order. Meaning, the short version of any informal review I'd conduct would say, "Samey gameplay sugarcoated with good writing". Especially if you play as a Sith Warrior and try to play like you're a Republic infiltrator, destroying the Empire from the inside...your cover is so deep, your fellow Republic soldiers and Jedi get confused over "Why is this Sith Lord acting so nice to me?!" But, sadly, I can't go super far in that direction...no further specifics because spoilers. All I'll say is, I do not believe the stories were designed with that playstyle in mind. And I wish they were, but I can understand if the current state of those "origin stories" are too set in stone; after all, there are expansions upon expansions further up the to-do list. My ego says I wish I could make my name "Forerunner" mean something, but that's a theme that's universal in any game I'd go into...how can one player truly stand head-and-shoulders above the other heroes and villains we call "players"? With what little research I've done, it's anywhere from absurd to impossible-by-design. Just saying, I'd work long and hard if I could enshrine myself as a nugget in the lore. Until then, I'll just enjoy the rides at this digital amusement park with a comparatively casual attitude. (To say nothing about the very meta context of Disney dismissing all previous expanded universe as "not canon", making our quests in the Old Republic moot as far as "canon" is concerned.) You might think "Well that's what the achievements are for", and to that I respond: "What ARE achievements good for?!" Out of the hundreds or thousands I've skimmed in-game, I see just a handful of them provide titles and maybe a tiny purse of premium currency ("Cartel Coins" as it's called in this particular galaxy; you'd need to reach 30 of those achievements if you want to buy 1 item from their store, meaning it's seemingly absurd to "earn" your way to premium goods, though they're mostly cosmetic in nature so that's forgivable). I don't see any way to display your "achievement score", and even if there WERE a way, I'd wager others would have 10 times what I have, and that can be intimidating to a brand-new player surrounded by nothing but senior experts (a little like the real-world job search, but with just a dollop less absolute despair). Meaning, how can we make all this matter, but not in such a way that new players will feel like it's futile to even try for it? Cross-class, I noticed with subscription you can swap between 2 different styles, and the only question I have is: why not just blend both of them? Why force us to switch between them? Game balancing? But, the process for choosing the second style struck a chord of nostalgia with me, because the way that dialogue played out...the coloring, font, all of it...it brought back the vibe of the first 2 Knights of the Old Republic games! And honestly, I miss that. Even compared to Mass Effect with "Paragon or Renegade" options locked off until you had a certain alignment, that's missing from this MMO that I wish were incorporated. It'd certainly give a reason for someone to stay committed to one path or the other. I've had a character stay generally gray and neutral with negligible consequence or tradeoff. Especially since those at the mercy of moral decisions will never resurface no matter which choice you make, and the light option does nothing more than sometimes send an email from an NPC involving a TINY gift and a thank-you-card. As far as options go (especially dialogue), comparing the MMO of The Old Republic to the classic Knights of the Old Republic is like comparing the same between Fallout 4 and Fallout 2. This paragraph is for nitpick time! why isn't Force Push a universal power across ALL Force users?! Why did I only see it with Sith Warrior at level 35 roughly?! And Force Speed for the light and dark Council class? Only lasting 2 seconds?! Classic KotOR saw it for closer to 10 or 15 seconds, and higher levels of Force Speed even gave extra attacks. And why are jetpacks, known for vertical thrust, nothing more than glorified vehicles? (As for the underwear playthrough - not nude because age rating BLEH - how does Rocket Boost work when the little jets come out of my character's bare feet?) And where in the world is Force Jump?! No, I do not mean the Force Leap of Jedi Knight / Sith Warrior, I mean being able to jump around like in the game Jedi Academy / Jedi Outcast! I love the idea of unarmed attacks, but why can't they be strong enough so I can roleplay as a martial artist? Teras Kasi is a thing in Star Wars lore - even Star Wars Galaxies had that as a feature! I think that's more than plenty to get the brain's gears started turning. I'll go back to the grind now. May the Force be with us. Semper Bellum! Jay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveTheCynic Posted March 2, 2023 Share Posted March 2, 2023 23 hours ago, JayForerunner said: Especially since those at the mercy of moral decisions will never resurface no matter which choice you make, and the light option does nothing more than sometimes send an email from an NPC involving a TINY gift and a thank-you-card. Play the Jedi Knight story all the way to Corellia, and you'll see how wrong this statement is. Various people(1) you can save along the way will show up there. (1) The full list is loaded with spoilers... 23 hours ago, JayForerunner said: why isn't Force Push a universal power across ALL Force users?! Why did I only see it with Sith Warrior at level 35 roughly?! Because you haven't played Jedi Knight far enough to reach that level? (They have it as well...) 23 hours ago, JayForerunner said: And where in the world is Force Jump?! No, I do not mean the Force Leap of Jedi Knight / Sith Warrior, I mean being able to jump around like in the game Jedi Academy / Jedi Outcast! Because Star Wars is more than just Force users, and what would you propose for Troopers, Smugglers, Imperial Agents and Bounty Hunters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayForerunner Posted March 4, 2023 Author Share Posted March 4, 2023 On 3/2/2023 at 6:52 PM, SteveTheCynic said: Because Star Wars is more than just Force users, and what would you propose for Troopers, Smugglers, Imperial Agents and Bounty Hunters? Jetpacks. Yes, I know, the things currently marketed as just a cosmetic alternative for vehicles, but still, we all know that image of Mandalorians flying around with backpack-sized rockets, so that would be my suggestion. Basically, something with more of a gameplay impact would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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