7.5 - feedback and thoughts (yes, another)

[supertimtaf]

Hey there 

 

Wanted to give my thoughts on the patch so far as impressions are still fresh. There's going to be no specific order of "good" or "bad", just my overall feedback on what I tested, noticed and what ticked me. No need for violence, overall I've been positively surprised by a few things, and irked by others. Oh and... Spoilers ahead, duh.
 

• Hutta visual upgrade : Damn this was actually impressive. I liked the new area a lot, full of details and varied enough while still keeping that "Straight-Hutta-the-sewers" vibe (get it ?). Both the new area and the original look good and coherent, I "hated" (in a good sense) stepping into whatever was down the sewers, and found everything to be really impressive visually. Massive congrats to the art team, that was really well done, and I really hope to see that amount of details and improvements being brought onto other planets (without the sewers this time if possible)
   
• Story : Good stuff in general, fairly pleasantly surprised at the Rodian and Evocii character you meet, they definitely were interesting enough for side characters. The progression is somewhat okay at first but *heavily* slowed down by having us do what felt like four daily quest, then four daily quests again... Voicing just one of these each time with a small cutscene would have been enough to make it feel meaningfull. Sahar did felt surprisingly okay to work with as a Sith, the impression of "influencing" her decisions was well made, and the option to blame her or not when making mistakes gave us the impression of having an actual character reacting to your actions. Oh and that scene at the end with Shae was *really good*, nice work on animations. You guys stepped up a lot. Overall good, with unecessary fillers and too short to be substantial for the amount of time between patches.
   
• Voice Acting : Oookay this will be my main issue with the story this patch. *A lot* of the cutscenes, especially the important ones, aren't voiced. That's weird. Our character should stand up to the dark council with his voice, not with a textbox. Our character should talk to Sahar in their ship a lot more. Right now the main issue is that it feels more like a "we ran out of budget" than a "this makes the story better" sadly. The fact that the Rodian and Hutt on hutta are also voiced in basic and not in their typical language feels also very weird. They get the funds to talk, but our character doesn't...? It becomes jarring, and if this is to be the norm moving forward, please make an announcement about this or something, because that's really not what we're here for atm. The stealth changes to male Agent were also surprising, because no one knew about it. I don't mind the new voice, but maybe calling out *earlier* that you guys were recasting male operative would have been better. Especially seeing how you just discarded the previous one without so much as a thank you. Idk what happened but yeah that's a communication oof.
   
• Gameplay : Bits of neat stuff here. The mobs on the new part of Hutta felt okay, though I'd have wished for them to have actual patterns rather than just being the same old enemies as the base game but with slightly more HP. The pleasing surprise was the Hutt fight, though it was only short-lived. You could have made much more of an impact if you relied less on adds (if he had none that would be perfect to be honest) and relied more on AoEs and patterns to dodge. That would have probably given you enough of a difficulty curve to increase its HP to make him feel actually somewhat threatening. Right now he melted too fast, which made him spawn a bunch of adds, that also were nothing but a minor inconvenience. Still, better than what I was expecting. Though your AoEs are sometimes a bit hard to see, like on the Ri'kan fight, mostly due to their transparency and some of the edges on the bigger ones being blurry. Extra points for the "save the prisoners" bonus mission, nothing "big" but really nice touch to see. Also, more Gonk Droid gameplay in the future. That was actually interesting and fun for the short time that it lasted. Maybe not just "more gonk droid" but more neat interactions like these, that branch out from your typical MMO gameplay, these are always welcomed and felt much more meaningfull than "do four small dailies to progress the story".
   
• PvP Season : Yikes. This is worse than I expected. Not only does seasons take longer, the new "medpacks and adrenal" rewards are... On the number of five. So you get less medpacks by completing a tier of PvP season than you get from two PvP games. This is *terrible*. The rewards also aren't good, I know that you guys just used the concept art sheet of the same armor and just made every variation present on it, but now it's becoming *really* jarring that this is just you making a reskin of the same armor over and over. If this is the best you *want* to do for PvP seasons, then it'd be probably best to find something else than PvP seasons entirely. There is only so much reskins that you can do before it gets really obvious. If you don't want to work on this then don't. Make an announcement and just go with it. Because you're just hurting players and burdening yourselves at that point.
   
• "Inspired by The Acolyte" : I mean... Two things bothering me on that point. The first one is really minor but with the new hairstyles, they kinda make for a big forehead, at least on T1 female bodies. I don't know if this is intented, but that's a shame, I really liked one of them and would have actually considered swapping hairstyles for the first time in years. The other thing is the whole Dark Harbinger hood situation. You had two choices here. One to figure out a way to prevent hairs from clipping (multiple of us posted solutions here and there on the forums, I won't get into it) *BEFORE* releasing this set. The other is to simply edit the description of the current set to add the mention "not compatible with every hairstyles". As it stands, it really feels sloppy and a bad communication to try and sell a bugged outfit for 20€. I understand development limitations and the time that it takes to implement small features like this. But this could (should) have been handled much better, especially on a paid product.
   
• QA : I know this is a bit rehashed but... Yeah please test things out before releasing them. I've seen numerous bits of bugs here and there, glaring issues like missing lip movements on cinematics, the inability to get off the jetpack when running away from the ship, the clipping on the new armor set, the inability to open a merchant window, the bugged UI on Galactic Season and PvP season (which *already happened in the past*)... Please take the time to QA a patch properly before putting it out. We wouldn't mind waiting an extra two week for a bug-free release, seriously. It feels unprofessionnal and prevents us from enjoying the patch fully.

Well I think that's about it. Now omw to get that basilisk droid... If I can have the strength to do this. Definitely not the type of content that I'm into so I'll probably hold off a bit more on that. Hope you guys find this feedback useful, and please don't take the bad stuff too personally. We all make mistakes as gamedevs, and what matters is making sure they don't happen again 

Overall the patch was nice but it feels *really* shallow for something that's supposed to keep us playing for six month until the next patch. I hope that I'll be proven wrong though, really.

[SentinalMasterWW]

My General thoughts? 

Honestly not surprising at all that a lot of people feel this update is lackluster and underwhelming. Since the latter half of 6.0 and all through out 7.0, content has been declining in size and quality. 

SWTOR content nowadays is best summed up as Rushed, Half-baked and underwhelming. The Dev's struggle to communicate anything to us players and leave us in radio silence. Like replacing the male Agent VA? I didn't expect that nor did any of us, that would have been nice to know Biosword! Not to mention they didn't give an official goodbye to the old VA Bertie Carvel, the dude put in 10 Years worth of work towards this game! I mean props to the new VA he is trying his best to try and stay close to the old VA's performance, but it is going to be weird getting used to this new voice. 

Speaking of VA its so nice that our character has been relegated to mute mindless drone #243 my favorite character. Y'know the one big selling point about SWTOR is that our character talks right Biosword? Y'know the one thing this game had going for it? I sure do love being an emotionless mime who moves their arms around to communicate. 

Regarding the story, it honestly feels like were the side character stuck in another main characters story. Like Sahar has more VA work than us lmao while we go just stand in the corner relegated to being just a background character. Honestly though this Mandalorian storyline needs to end, people are bored and its clearly being milked out longer than it needed to be. I get this story was pre-planned during the height of the Mandalorian hype but honestly people are sick and tired of mando stuff as it has been milked to dust.  This whole mando expansion should've been something like Rise of the hutt cartel, go to one planet with good writing and beat the baddies there. It honestly would've been a cooler expansion had this been set on say Mandalore itself for example. 

Regarding PVP seasons, is anyone else not surprised it sucks? Like oh boy I can't wait to get medpacs and adrenals. THE SAME ONES YOU CAN BUY OFF FLEET FOR 1,000 CREDITS! NOT COUNTING THE ONES YOU GET FOR JUST BEATING A PVP MATCH! WHO ON THE BIOSWORD TEAM THOUGHT THIS WAS GOOD IDEA? WE LITERALLY TOLD THEM IT WAS DUMB AND YET THEY DID IT ANYWAY. HOW CAN YOU BE SO DICONNECTED FROM YOUR PLAYERBASE? This is not even counting they haven't fixed the following too btw; 

1. Premades still being an issue after TWO YEARS 

2. Broken meta specs AGAIN TWO YEARS 

3. Lack of actual incentive for PVP Veterans, no ranked or rated game modes nada. 

4. PVP Seasons rewards all feel like they just did CTRL+C and just did that for these past seasons. Last seasons armor looked absolutely terrible and looked like something out of Anthem. Season 2 & 3 honestly imo had the best armors and my PVP buddies agree as well. 

The only reasons they extended the season was to try and milk an already dying game mode out more, they neglected the community and are trying to save themselves because they know they messed up and alienated their PVP audience. If they want PVP'ers to come back, how about they fix the previously addressed 4 issues? 

1 hour ago, supertimtaf said:

"Inspired by The Acolyte" : I mean... Two things bothering me on that point. The first one is really minor but with the new hairstyles, they kinda make for a big forehead, at least on T1 female bodies. I don't know if this is intented, but that's a shame, I really liked one of them and would have actually considered swapping hairstyles for the first time in years. The other thing is the whole Dark Harbinger hood situation. You had two choices here. One to figure out a way to prevent hairs from clipping (multiple of us posted solutions here and there on the forums, I won't get into it) *BEFORE* releasing this set. The other is to simply edit the description of the current set to add the mention "not compatible with every hairstyles". As it stands, it really feels sloppy and a bad communication to try and sell a bugged outfit for 20€. I understand development limitations and the time that it takes to implement small features like this. But this could (should) have been handled much better, especially on a paid product.

I honestly expected they would do this, I know it would be a pain to edit the mesh of every hair to fit inside the hood and would take too much work, but honestly it looks ridiculous. This is not even mentioning how comically big the hood is on some female toons. All they basically did was disable the hair hiding feature on this outfit for the hair version, that is literally it. 

Overall I'm not surprised that the update is as it is, the dev's have had a poor track record these past few years, ignoring player feedback, more bugs introduced, etc. At this point what is 8.0 going to be? What is it going to offer? More Cartel market items? Given the rate of major expansion releases 8.0 may be out next year or given the slow pace the year after. Who is still going to want to play SWTOR by than? GTA 6 will already be out alongside other hyped up games. "Oh boy I can't wait to hop on SWTOR to play PVP Season 16, where I get to do the exact same thing I did back in season 15! and play the same content over and over that has been in here since launch!" 

I honestly don't even bother watching the livestreams anymore because it follows this setup now. 

1. New Story that takes place in a Daily Area of an already existing location. 

2. New reputation to grind that no one cares about or actually does. 

3. PVP Season or Galactic season showcase. 

4. Cartel Market showcase based off of whatever X Star Wars show is running. 

5. If we are lucky update the UI and break it again. 

6. Big game change that no one asked for or wanted. 

Repeat process for every "Expansion update". 

[Gokkus]

I like this update a lot. The VA critique is justified but it seems to cloud pretty much everything else.

The story was good and enganging. There were some very nice choices and being DS made me feel genuinly uncomfortable at times. Plus the story finally went somewhere for real. All in all, well done!

The fights were good and interesting. Did not expect that at all. Even died with a dps companion once. Very nice!

The new area looked good and was very atmospheric. In combination with the story I felt quite immersed. Great!

My only real negative is the 'corridor strategy' that was employed again. Making us run through the same narrow corridors filled with mobs multiple times. There is no fun in that in at all.

Overall I'm quite happy!

Edited May 30 by Gokkus

[Otowi]

Yeah, it gets tedious real fast running through endless corridors with damage sponge NPC's and healers in almost every group made it even more so. Not to mention gold NPC's that takes a good long while to whittle down, they almost felt like an boss fight without being one. Made for liberal use of heroic moment to make it go faster.

[Traceguy]

The new hairstyles are completely lackluster for female characters.

[DWho]

3 hours ago, Gokkus said:

The story was good and enganging.

The only real issue I have is the same I have had with all the "expansions/updates" lately. Way to little story play time (and what there is, is just running down a corridor in a straight line with mob after mob of the same enemies to drag it out - reminds me of all the complaints about skytrooper corridors in KoTFE/KoTET). The number of people critiquing the story, having finished it less than a day after it launched, is by far the biggest problem with updates. An expansion/update should take more than 1 short sitting to complete. Everything from 7.0 to now is practically shorter than one mid sized KotFE/KoTET chapter and those were pretty much 1 sitting completions as well.

[supertimtaf]

58 minutes ago, DWho said:

The only real issue I have is the same I have had with all the "expansions/updates" lately. Way to little story play time (and what there is, is just running down a corridor in a straight line with mob after mob of the same enemies to drag it out - reminds me of all the complaints about skytrooper corridors in KoTFE/KoTET). The number of people critiquing the story, having finished it less than a day after it launched, is by far the biggest problem with updates. An expansion/update should take more than 1 short sitting to complete. Everything from 7.0 to now is practically shorter than one mid sized KotFE/KoTET chapter and those were pretty much 1 sitting completions as well.

Agreed on the corridor approach which feels bland and repetitive. That's how it is sometimes, I get the need for some of it. But that + the pack of trash followed by another pack of trash... Yeah it grows old pretty fast. I think that this ties onto my complaint of the trash mobs being really simple and bland. Giving them small patterns, casts to stun or aoes to dodge would allow to put less of them and making them feel more engaging at the same time !

[juliushorst]

All I can say about changes to PVP season is a quote from Baron Deathmark:

"What a failure!"

[Setta]

22 minutes ago, juliushorst said:

All I can say about changes to PVP season is a quote from Baron Deathmark:

"What a failure!"

Not the exact quote here, but feels appropriate, "Did you fail your players last time?  Well here's your chance to do it again!"

[supertimtaf]

I'll add that one tidbit about the Dantooine event because I just did a first round of it, and it genuinely surprised me. It's relatively short, enjoyable and different from the rest of the game. Massive congrats on that, I really liked it for a first time. Much more original than XIV's idea on the matter. Still could use some improvements and added features with time but for a first attempt that was *really good*, please keep up that work.

Question is how tedious will it get after two or three weeks of it, but that I can't really judge now !

[DuchessKristania]

1 hour ago, supertimtaf said:

I'll add that one tidbit about the Dantooine event because I just did a first round of it, and it genuinely surprised me. It's relatively short, enjoyable and different from the rest of the game. Massive congrats on that, I really liked it for a first time. Much more original than XIV's idea on the matter. Still could use some improvements and added features with time but for a first attempt that was *really good*, please keep up that work.

Question is how tedious will it get after two or three weeks of it, but that I can't really judge now !

I really enjoyed it too. It's just a fun little detour from the usual stuff. I'm battling a bug right now and it gave me something fun to do that I didn't have to be super focused and energetic for, neither of those things are my strong suit just now, lol. I also like Dantooine and it's nice to have more to do there.

Edited May 31 by DuchessKristania

[supertimtaf]

4 hours ago, DuchessKristania said:

I really enjoyed it too. It's just a fun little detour from the usual stuff. I'm battling a bug right now and it gave me something fun to do that I didn't have to be super focused and energetic for, neither of those things are my strong suit just now, lol. I also like Dantooine and it's nice to have more to do there.

The fact that it's available from lvl 15 also makes it interesting. I will gladly take the time to do the quests each day on the alts that I'm leveling, because it's worth doing for exp AND for the rewards.

I hope that with time we'll see some updates to this event to add more stuff, more rewards and the likes, just like they should probably update the old ones a bit as well. But so far this was fun to go through !

Also whoever made that achievement to pet an animal with darkside alignement was a genius.

[DuchessKristania]

Yeah, the one thing I found a little disappointing was that there wasn't very much to do after the first day. It would be nice to be able to hunt for eggs or something similar more than just the first time. I agree that all of the the events should get updating from time to time. They should at least rotate prizes or add new ones each year. I've been playing for quite a while, not a founder, but close to, and I have multiples of a lot of the prizes now. That's not a complaint, just saying that after a few years the motivation to keep doing the events dwindles.

[Pietrastor]

I agree that the story finally got interesting so kudos. Too bad it took 6 freaking years since the current arc started on Ossus...

[DuchessKristania]

Without giving anything away (just in case), I thought that end scene was interesting. The rest of the story was okay. I find Sah'ar boring at the best moments, and annoying at the worst. The story did manage to soften my feelings toward her this time, still not a character I find particularly engaging, but I did feel for her in certain scenes.

[Pietrastor]

7 minutes ago, DuchessKristania said:

Without giving anything away (just in case), I thought that end scene was interesting. The rest of the story was okay. I find Sah'ar boring at the best moments, and annoying at the worst. The story did manage to soften my feelings toward her this time, still not a character I find particularly engaging, but I did feel for her in certain scenes.

I would say she ain't up there with class characters/companions or Senya/Vaylin/Arcann from KOTFEET but then again, she does have far less screentime given how utterly scarce the updates are nowadays

[DuchessKristania]

15 minutes ago, Pietrastor said:

I would say she ain't up there with class characters/companions or Senya/Vaylin/Arcann from KOTFEET but then again, she does have far less screentime given how utterly scarce the updates are nowadays

Yeah, I wouldn't even say she's an objectively bad character, I just don't enjoy her or her story. I've never really been interested in the mandalorians either though, so this whole recent story just hasn't been my cup. I know a lot of other people are interested in the mandalorians, so I'm glad they're getting that. Not every story can be suited to my interests and for now I'm just waiting for this one to wrap up and a new story to begin, hopefully one I'll enjoy more.

Edited June 2 by DuchessKristania

[Pietrastor]

2 minutes ago, DuchessKristania said:

Yeah, I wouldn't even say she's an objectively bad character, I just don't enjoy her or her story. I've never really been interested in the mandalorians either though, so this whole recent story just hasn't been my cup. I know a lot of other people are interested in the mandalorians, so I'm glad they're getting that. Not every story can be suited to my interests and for now I'm just waiting for this one to wrap up and a new story to begin, hopefully one I'll enjoy more.

Aye, ppl wanted more Mando stuff but the entire Malgus/Mando era dragging so glacially for so many years (ffs, Ossus was 6 years ago, Spirit of Vengenance 4 years ago) made everyone check out and we just want to be done with it and off to a new arc. Ridiculous how they paced this is out

[DuchessKristania]

I can't complain too much, I enjoy the stuff that centers around the Force, and I will acknowledge that a great deal of the story does. As a writer I'd love to have a go at creating something, but I know whatever comes along there will be people who love it and people who hate it. IF I could choose things to play around with they would be to go back and pick up some of the old story threads that were left dangling and unresolved. I can't think of a specific one right now (have not had enough coffee), but there are plenty to choose from.

[Pietrastor]

1 minute ago, DuchessKristania said:

I can't complain too much, I enjoy the stuff that centers around the Force, and I will acknowledge that a great deal of the story does. As a writer I'd love to have a go at creating something, but I know whatever comes along there will be people who love it and people who hate it. IF I could choose things to play around with they would be to go back and pick up some of the old story threads that were left dangling and unresolved. I can't think of a specific one right now (have not had enough coffee), but there are plenty to choose from.

At this point I'll take anything new. Yes Im glad the current story arc FINALLY got interesting but it took way too long. 

Personally, gimme another (expanded) go at Star Cabal or the Hutts, both featured prominently aaaaaages ago and both surprisingly underutilized within the setting, fresh concepts (relatively speaking, given SW standards of rehashing the same tropes) 

[JakRoanin]

I'm a Mando fan not gonna lie, but yes, the pacing in this story is very awful. Now, it's finally boiling so I want to see it through. When it's done I'm hoping for more rebuilding and opportunities to confront the conflict in different ways. I would also like to know where Scourge disappeared too.

[DuchessKristania]

6 minutes ago, Pietrastor said:

At this point I'll take anything new. Yes Im glad the current story arc FINALLY got interesting but it took way too long. 

Personally, gimme another (expanded) go at Star Cabal or the Hutts, both featured prominently aaaaaages ago and both surprisingly underutilized within the setting, fresh concepts (relatively speaking, given SW standards of rehashing the same tropes) 

One thing I'm surprised they never revisited was that at the end of Hutt Cartel Pub characters think Makeb went BOOM, but Imp characters know it did not. There is so much room to play with that. I'm not saying that's what they should do, I'm just giving it as an example of something that left room to explore.

[Otowi]

True. And also what happened to Vaylin? I'd really like some story on that. Would not mind seeing Senya again, as I like her character a lot.

For me until now, the story pacing has been pretty bad, and way to little focus on us as characters. That needs to change, so that we feel important again, instead of a sidekick.

I know that Charles left and it shows, as his writing was a bit more consistent atleast. Now it seems a bit all over the place. Nothing against the new writer, but as I said above, better pacing is important, or the story stagnates.

Maybe getting the great Timothy Zahn to write something would be good, but I doubt they could afford him.

[DuchessKristania]

29 minutes ago, Otowi said:

True. And also what happened to Vaylin? I'd really like some story on that. Would not mind seeing Senya again, as I like her character a lot.

For me until now, the story pacing has been pretty bad, and way to little focus on us as characters. That needs to change, so that we feel important again, instead of a sidekick.

I know that Charles left and it shows, as his writing was a bit more consistent atleast. Now it seems a bit all over the place. Nothing against the new writer, but as I said above, better pacing is important, or the story stagnates.

Maybe getting the great Timothy Zahn to write something would be good, but I doubt they could afford him.

 I think despite the little hints with Vaylin, she was technically killed so they don't actually have to do anything there. Yes, hints have happened, but unless they are confirmed to be anything they can just leave Vaylin dead and might choose to do so. Her story could be considered concluded, even with the hints.

Timothy Zahn would be so cool! I love the Chiss and would love to see Copero become an explorable planet. In fairness, I'd probably spend 90% of my time there if they did it, lol. I love Copero, so that is entirely self serving, lol. We will not go into the hours I've spent in the Traitor Among the Chiss fps, just looking around, lol.

I'd also enjoy seeing the story go to more of the planets from the movie. I'm kind of over all these dessert/canyon planets, and Mek-Sha is an absolute nightmare for me to see (too dark and not enough contrast for my terrible eyes). I'd really love to see Naboo added. There could be land and water missions. I just adore the look of that planet. Can you imagine getting a Naboo stronghold?!

Edited June 2 by DuchessKristania

[Pietrastor]

I would like to see Vaylin back but not as a main focus of the story, an addition/part of an ensemble cast at most. She already was the main focus of a major expansion (KOTET)

Wouldn't be opposed to a major Rakata story (big part of the TOR era) or something completly new. I really enjoyed both the Zakuul and Iokath original additions to the lore (minus the clunky Emperor connection)

Edited June 2 by Pietrastor