Dynamic Encounters PTS Feedback

[Lagurs]

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

Partly, especially on Hoth it is not straight forward

• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

yes, but too long travel time esp. on Hoth

• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

yes

• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

yes

• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

no, there need to be more travel points around the planets to jump nearer to the encounter, esp. in the area of the opposite faction

• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

yes

• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

yes, but it is often not clear how progess is achieved when other player are in the area

 

[Screaming_Ziva]

Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

    Yes, they were easy to locate. However, it would have been better if they had a hover circle on the map showing the outline of the area like other missions do.

Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

    This seemed fine.

Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

    Not really.  Kill, pick up or click, rinse and repeat.

Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

    Yes, they were fairly quick.

Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

    Yes.

Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

    Not 100%.  For the stealth sniper encounter, I wasn't really sure where I needed to go to get the stealth detector and shield.

    For Volcanic Rumblings, it says to Take Temperature Readings but I could not figure out how to do that. I only figured it out when I saw another player clicking items on the volcanoes. Change the color on the Fissures so they stand out more and a couple of them were too high up and could not be clicked.

    For Hidden Chain Invasion, where is the Lieutenant?  You have all of these Hidden Chain enemies but no Lt.  Do you have to click something for him to spawn?

Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

    Yes.

What was your favorite Encounter and why?

    Taun Fawn Fun was fun for me.  Don't really know why.

What was your least favorite Encounter and why?

    The stealth snipers mainly because the whole area on the map isn't marked (see above).

Please mention any bugs you encountered.

    The Massive Geo Beast didn't seem to allow shared tagging.  I showed up when another Empire player was fighting it and it was around 50%. I helped him kill it but did not get credit.

For Unecessary Repairs, the clickables take a very long time to respawn.

Additional comments:

These need some sort of better reward than 50 tech fragments. Either add a reputation track or tokens and a new vendor with new items. I can't see myself spending any time on these on the live servers for 50 tech fragments each.

Add a filter on the map for these and allow us to turn them off on the map. If I'm not interested in them, I don't want them on my map.

The following appears on the Massive Geo Beast map hover:

Not really sure what these items have to do with the encounter. Are these drops from the beast? Are they only available when the encounter is active for me?  Can I just kill the beast over and over to farm them?

Edited Saturday at 03:34 PM by Screaming_Ziva

[lukewizzzard]

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
  
  Yes, really easy to find on the map
  
  Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
  
  Yes, worked mostly great on the otherwise big empty parts of Tatooine and Hoth
  
  Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
  
  alot of kill and collect objectives but that is how most of the game works, but I did enjoy the more creative ones more
  like the gonk droid or pushing gamorreans into the Sarlacc Pit (underused area)
  
  Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
  
  Most of them went by really fast, outside of the ones that were bugged like Hidden chain invasion on hoth

  Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
  
  Yes they are spread out quite nicely

  Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
  
  On some, mostly on Hoth I think, there was a bit more looking around involved (for items and clickables) but
  looking around a bit WITHOUT exact questmarker handholding is not a bad thing
   

  What was your favorite Encounter and why?
  
  Wire are you so cute was nice -> I really like "unique" quest rewards
  
  helping the band -> I liked the continity 
  
  I really like the concept of "imperial attack!" and similar ones, but I think the "boss" like the walker
  needs to be a bit stronger. I did them on a lower level character with level 1 companion and it felt too easy 
   

  What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
  
  "Tread lightly " on Tatooine was a bit boring maybe needs some npcs or something to spice it up a bit
  
   

  Please mention any bugs you encountered.
  
  Hidden chain invasion: lieutenant does not spawn
  
  Sarlacc Snacktime: Repulsor Gun animation was missing so it looked a bit funky
  
  Comments:
  
  I hope there are more npc voicelines coming a lot of the encounters feel really quiet
  
  The quest with unique rewards or armor pieces are great otherwise the 50 techfrags or just exp feel really underwhelming
  
  Overall I like the concept so far and hope that these encouters come to most if not all planets
  to highlight the lore of the planet and/or the conflict between empire and republic

[phalczen]

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
• What was your favorite Encounter and why?
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
• Please mention any bugs you encountered.

1) Yes, it was very easy to locate Dynamic Encounters (DE).  This part of system is working well, although I did not notice if there is a legend in the galaxy map that specifies the icon associated with dynamic encounters.  I figured it out because I knew what I was testing but I'm not sure a new player would recognize the icon.  I'm sure the map legend will be updated if it isn't already.

2) Yes, the play session was pretty straightforward.  I started off Republic Hoth, I did the Hidden Chain encounter but then I asked in chat and learned it was bugged.  I moved to 4 different dynamic encounters.  The downtime is related to the absence of legacy perks on PTS, namely the quicktravel cooldown and move while summoning, but otherwise it flowed well.  I did four DEs and it took me about 30 minutes or so.

3) Variety?  Kill things or click on blue glowing things, I mean that's not much different than missions on live.  Are they supposed to be?

4) I think it was a reasonable amount of time once I moved on from the bugged Hidden Chain DE.  I attempted to do the King Wampa DE and there were two imperials killing it also, but I guess shared tagging doesn't work cross faction yet like it does for the world bosses during the Feast of Prosperity event.  I know shared tagging doesn't work cross faction for DvL bosses (among other things) but it has worked for the FoP world bosses since the event went live, so its difficult for me to know whether the lack of cross factional shared tagging for the King Wampa DE is intended or not.  I didn't wait for the King Wampa to respawn.  The blue glowy Rare Fuel Isotope DE that you have to do for the Curator seemed to have a decent respawn rate, but I did notice in chat people complaining about other mobs having a low respawn rate.

5) Yes, the travel time between encounters feels reasonable with the caveat that the legacy perks aren't present on PTS.

6) Yes, it was abundantly clear what needed to be done in a DE.

7) Yes, I fully understood what my character was being asked to do and why.  Kill stuff or click on blue glowies.

8 and 9 )  I have only completed four so far so I can't really comment.  However, I did appreciate the narration of the Curator during the Rare Fuel Isotope DE.  Is this going to be present for all characters, or just the ones that did the B3-S1 prequests and would know who he is?  I hope there are more of these voiced over DEs.  It greatly helps with immersion, because the removal of the turn-in requirement for planetary heroics has rendered an entire library of cutscenes inaccessible.  I agree with a poster above that the DE with the White Maw Sapper stealthing gold mob and mine defusing was a little tedious.  Are we supposed to be turning off sprint ability for that DE?

10) The only two bugs I've encountered thus far were:  Hidden chain for republic Hoth doesn't spawn the boss.  Cross faction shared tagging does not appear to be present.  Legacy perks missing on PTS make the experience a little tedious.

Lastly, I just want to ask about the apparent design goals with this system.  I'm not sure I really understand the point.  Is it to fill up open areas of the game world with mobs so you can't drive around without getting shot at?  The types of missions I've done aren't anything different than the dailies or heroics I already do on a regular basis, so I guess I'm not sure why I would do these over the status quo.  They don't feel any more fun than the existing missions, aside from the one out of four with a voice over from an NPC I recognized.  Furthermore, the rewards seem pointless.  At 50 tech fragments each, I would need to do 800 dynamic encounters to earn enough tech fragments to craft one gold 300 augment.  So, do 800 dynamic encounters or DF/DP story mode ten times -- the choice for me is pretty obvious.

I'll try some more when PTS downloads on my laptop and provide more feedback as I get more of these under my belt.

Edited Saturday at 06:15 PM by phalczen

[Ranadiel_Marius]

Finished up Imp side this morning. No changes to my previous answers, but some additional thoughts on missions that I ran today.

Maintaining Order - The respawn timer is way too slow. I walked into the area with nothing there and spent three minutes trying to figure out what to do. I'd think it was bugged, but a single group respawned while I was trying to figure out what was going on. Also there was one group of two units that didn't cause the temporary ability to trigger.

Whitefang Woes - Tissue sample drop rate felt too low. I had to kill something like twice the number of cats that the mission required to get enough samples.

Under Fire - I entered the area, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Unnecessary Repairs - I could not find the interactables. I don't know if I was looking in the wrong place or they were on respawn and the timer is too long, but after a few min I just gave up.

(Ice Fishing) - Sometimes while doing the ice fishing, I just didn't get the item. I heard the sound for a successful pick up, I got 250 conquest points, but when the probe returned I had no fish. I don't know what triggered this. Might be that I moved too far away while the probe was doing its thing? I don't know if that could do it, but it is the only thing I can think of.

(The Wolf) - This boss fight feels a bit overpowered. Or perhaps more accurately, a bit too bullet spongey.

Random Thought - Strong and elite enemies should count for more in the kill missions. As it is, there is no incentive to bother with them because you gain as much as a normal enemy but take a decent amount longer.

6 hours ago, Mahriman said:

Also the big Czerka droid in the middle of the Dune desert seem to have some mechanic that makes it have a lot damage reduction that wasn't immediately clear how to disable its shield or it wasn't working, though the droid was still killable, albeit more slowly.

The jawas on the hill have three explosive fuel tanks (or something) with them. Pick one of them up, move it to the green arrow, and then get the boss to walk over the explosive to set it off and temporarily stun it disabling the shield.

[sam-marc]

Played for an hour yesterday and few more hours today with freinds. I'll go through my thoughts but first I'll answer @JackieKo questions about feedback.

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
  Answer: Yes...
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
  No. - Many mini events required extensive running and or stealth around opposite faction champion mobs.
  While *some* events happen to be nearby, I find the more desirable ones to be much farther away. I don't know if that's a bad thing.
  But that is the answer.
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
  No. Two hours was enough for me to notice the tedious nature of the events.
  As others have pointed out, they are simple kill X, retrieve Y, Click Z on interface.
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
  Too fast imo. With friends, clearing mobs and "bosses" was a cake walk. We creamed everything without
  fear of failure.
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
  Is this not the same as question 2? Well, anyways, same answer.
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
  Yes...
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
  I feel like this is the same question again. Refer to the previous answer.
• What was your favorite Encounter and why?
  The ones were you kill a single enemy. Why? Because i'm a simple man.
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
  Salvaging parts on Tattooine. Terrible game design. Half the time you don't get  a part, and not enough nodes are around.
  Really bad design on that one.
• Please mention any bugs you encountered.
  Quite often, when progressing the Republic attack missions, the "defeat the walker" part of the steps doesn't fulfil.
  
  
  
  
  My thoughts:
  
  So far, really boring. Like REALLY REALLY boring. I actually thought that after completing events across the world, that something would happen and some other event
  would pop up with a boss. I quickly realised that the teaser was referring to the "mini bosses" as I call them, such as the easy walker champ and many others. The walker, is so easy it's laughable. My companion can just about solo it while I go make coffee. I came to the PTS with the mind set of "New content that will be good for groups" and what I discovered was new content that is more than soloable and the only time you need help, is for one niche boss on each world effected by the "uprising". Hoth has the Wampa for example, you're gonna need two people for that. But that's it. I really think these "mini events" need to be MUCH harder, like way way harder. Some of the bosses should require many people to take them down, rather than being so easy. I spent hours completing "mini events" across the map and I obtained ONE piece of RESKINNED gear! And it was the Cuffs... All the rewards barring the hidden chain set, are reskins and awful. The rewards should be something else. How about a reputation vendor or something, for quelling these "mini events" and cool rewards we can buy. Isn't that the usual system?
  
  Positives:
  
  Seemless group play and mission tracking. Very nice.
  The open world feels more "alive" and opening the map now kinda feels different, at least for me.
  The idea is new, at least for this game, so that helps when trying to look for motivation to log-in.
  Encourages open world PvP, to an extent.
  Hidden chain armour set, nice.
  
  Negatives:
  
  Some "mini events" are truly terrible. Click this, click that, done. Boring... Could have had Pazaak...
  Loot drop chance, terrible. 21 mini events in a row, and one gear drop. If this was the live server, that'd be me done forever.
  Nothing happens when you complete many events on one planet, no special end event. Just a reset of the "mini events".
  Why am I doing this content? For 50 tech frags? No thanks. For reskinned gear? No thanks. This part needs to be figured out
  because the moment you roll this to live servers and people see only one good reward (Hidden chain set), they're going to grind that and never play
  it again. This is ALWAYS your mistake with new stuff. You have a cool idea, but no idea how to drive it home. Make the rewards much more appealing
  and give max level, end game players, a real reason to travel there and do the content. Because right now, there's barely one reason to grind it.
  
  Thanks.
  
   - Sam AKA Star Wars Central
   

[Clonelimit]

 

1. Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters? YES

 

• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime? YES

 

• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives? YES

 

• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters? Yes and No, The kill 30 X npcs after a short Encounter can be quite Jarring.

 

• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable? YES we have so much travel utility, it's not a problem. 

 

• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters? YES, for the greater part it was, sometimes the audio cues threw me off regarding location of quest. Hoth Power station for example. The NPC asks for help, but the quest area is further down the path.  in short; Quest voice over trigger zone is large

 

• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why? YES

 

• What was your favorite Encounter and why? I am still only on Hoth on the imperial side, I just wanted to pop on the forums and give some feedback to say I am really enjoying them, some of the ones that stick out are Wamp and Womp; I love that the NPCS are fighting each other... it feels alive... then you go in and mash them both!!!   I also really enjoyed the one with the skels and the beacon/radars it was cool to come over the hill and see npcs whacking on a radar, and of course i loved the taun taun babies sliding on the ice shelf... although we should be able to drop them off the edge for a title... "Nasty Babysitter" or Harbinger of cruelty" or something lol...   OH and the ice fishing one !!! that was a neat Suprise.

 

• What was your least favorite Encounter and why? I can't remember which one on hoth it was, but it had a kill counter X30 npcs and that felt like a slog... even though it wasn't. perhaps that was bugged showing the kill count required............ which follows on to my next comment. What i really enjoyed, was the change to percentage of task completion instead of a tally count, I am not entirely sure why i like this aspect better but it "feels better?" just the progression of doing actions... 

 

• Please mention any bugs you encountered. There was some double up icons on the quick bar for the Hoth dynamic quest Lava suit testing; o and some of the fish shadows on the ice fishing one.... the  pathways are bugged they move and then spring back instantly to a location....like a yoyo slow one way then ZING reset 

 

I am really looking forward to playing the dynamic quests on Tatooine once i have had my fill of Hoth. I think at one stage on Hoth I counted 22-24? available dynamics on the map screen... I thought it was exciting to see them! I think players who are questing on Hoth will really enjoy them. I enjoyed going to Hoth just for the Dynamic quests!!!!

 

This is a step in the right direction. I think the rewards are acceptable and the right value.

 

oh one last thing... I dont know how practical or possible it is...but  if you could add some audio to the dynamic quest areas, when the event is triggered that would be very immersive. the lack of audio change on hoth for example is wearing quite thin.

[Dirtnose]

Will post bugs in here as I find them.

• On the Empire Hoth dynamic encounter "Scouts Honor". When you free the Imperial Spy Prisoner's they run off, but their hitbox/collsion remains behind, so you get stuck on nothing where they were kneeled down as prisoners.
• On the Empire Hoth dynamic encounter "Republic Attack!", it will make you do the mission twice if you join mid-progress. I joined when the Republic Troops were around 50%, then defeated the Republic Walker. Instead of having the mission complete, it reset, and I had to do it all again from the start. This also happens for the "Talz Order" mission. So I'm assuming it's probably for multiple missions that you join in after they've already been started by someone else.

Edited Sunday at 08:28 AM by Dirtnose

[phalczen]

I've completed another three DEs.  The White Maw Assault at Zerek outpost seems broken.  I killed 100% of the pirates but nothing progressed.  I searched all over Zerek base and couldn't find the explosives referred to as optional for the mission.

The one with the mouse droid in the starship graveyard on hoth ... it would help to identify the terminals a little easier and figure out where you need to stand to start slicing, since the artwork is all the original textures.  The place where you need to stand is often on the side of the terminal and not where any keys or ports are illustrated

After finishing the remaining 18 DEs needed for the republic hoth achievement, I would say the snow flowers are a little hard to see against the snow especially in the exhaustion zone.

[Twelfthdoctor]

Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

Yes. The markers for where to *start* the encounters were clear.

Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

Mostly.

Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

I think there could be a bit more variety. Particularly more that do not involve fighting other players over clickable objects in the world (some share progress, some don't seem to, and some encounters being faction-neutral can lead to issues here).

Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

If there was no cross-faction competition or competition to interact with non-shared interactive objects, yes. Getting kills progress easily but getting stuck at low/no progress with crates and trying to snipe clicks from other players doesn't feel good.

Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

On Tatooine and Hoth, there is a lot of speeder travel involved from QT points. A fair bit of travel downtime.

Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

About 75% of the time it was, but there were some encounters (talz sniper ambush comes to mind) where I could not find an interactive object and killing/looting seemingly-relevant enemies did nothing to progress as I ran around and the timer ticked down to zero.

Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

Usually, but there was some confusion over what might be unclear vs. bugged vs. working as intended but not behaving properly due to more players interacting with the event than expected to on Live after it's been out a week. In addition, some voice lines may be missing/ incomplete, and some more specific objective markers may be needed, especially on Hoth where interactive objects' blue tinted overlay texture matches the environmental colors. More use of green indicators may be better for Hoth.

What was your favorite Encounter and why?

At the moment, I favor shared-credit Encounters, though the bantha experimentation was fun for the goofy effects. That said, if more players were at that one at the time, it may have become frustrating to complete.

What was your least favorite Encounter and why?

There are a few that are tied here. Generally, anything that has "Kill X of Y" with a high number combined with "interact with Z-type objects D times" where progress is not shared with other players. Kills are usually easier to complete than item interactions since multiple people can tag an enemy group.

Please mention any bugs you encountered.

Hidden Chain LTs  do not seem to reliably spawn, though I've heard that the issue is that they don't *respawn* after the first kill, even if a new player is able to acquire the encounter and progress to the point of being directed to kill the LT.

On Tatoooine, there is an encounter that involves threatening exchange thugs in the northwest area of Mos Ila, but the activation radius for the temporary quick bar with the 'threaten' ability does not line up with the NPC spawn placement. I see the NPCs, the quick bar doesn't appear, I run farther away and it appears, but now the interaction gives an out of range error. 

[Mahriman]

5 hours ago, Ranadiel_Marius said:

The jawas on the hill have three explosive fuel tanks (or something) with them. Pick one of them up, move it to the green arrow, and then get the boss to walk over the explosive to set it off and temporarily stun it disabling the shield.

Yeah, I noticed that on my second run on pub side today. The green markers can be really hard to spot but now that I know what to do, it's a lot easier. Thanks though!

[CadeStive]

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

Yes

• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

Yes

• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

Yes

• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

Yes

• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

Yes

• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

Yes

• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

Yes, with some issues of having to look around for certain things to click on. Or some encounters being first come first serve.

• What was your favorite Encounter and why?

I had none.

• What was your least favorite Encounter and why?

I had none.

• Please mention any bugs you encountered.

LT's not dropping in chain events.

A ton of 1st come 1st serve encounters that made whoever hit it the primary person who got credit for it, which made people a bit toixc, because it made a massive que line and people spamming aoe to get it.

Hoth mission on the bridge became a race of whoever could defuse the explosives and defeat the enemies the quickest got to kill the champion, would be the one who ONLY got credit for it. Once again, 1st come 1st serve. A lot of encounters were like this.

Music missing was a massive buzz kill for me tbh.

• My thoughts

 

The idea of it is great, but I feel like the team was to busy looking at other MMO's that do this already and just copied it. Instead of making something unique to SWTOR it's self in the MMO market. You have to ask the golden question, what makes this different from other MMO's? It's a Star Wars MMO with endless adventures and opportunities. I feel like these opportunities that you guys are given are being some what being wasted, and not thought outside of the box. The community begs and preaches to you guys on the daily about what we want to see. I feel like it's still not being heard.

I really truly hope that the loot being dropped during these chain events-other events wasn't something you guys are serious about, maybe a placeholder? Because if this is the gear you guys are planning on giving people who spend hours doing this, it's going to backfire quickly. The rehash of armor that's already in game in some of these events that can be bought off the gtn and vendors in the game is a slap in the face. You guys need to legit hire a dedicated artist who just makes armors that are not always cartel related.

Dish out old kell dragon armor, I dunno something.

 

However, it was fun. I had a blast running around old planets that felt some what different. But you guys really need to find good rewards that people are going to be interested or no one is going to want to do this, or will do it, then never do it again because it's not rewarding.

 

[Clonelimit]

8 hours ago, Clonelimit said:

 

1. Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters? YES

 

• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime? YES

 

• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives? YES

 

• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters? Yes and No, The kill 30 X npcs after a short Encounter can be quite Jarring.

 

• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable? YES we have so much travel utility, it's not a problem. 

 

• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters? YES, for the greater part it was, sometimes the audio cues threw me off regarding location of quest. Hoth Power station for example. The NPC asks for help, but the quest area is further down the path.  in short; Quest voice over trigger zone is large

 

• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why? YES

 

• What was your favorite Encounter and why? I am still only on Hoth on the imperial side, I just wanted to pop on the forums and give some feedback to say I am really enjoying them, some of the ones that stick out are Wamp and Womp; I love that the NPCS are fighting each other... it feels alive... then you go in and mash them both!!!   I also really enjoyed the one with the skels and the beacon/radars it was cool to come over the hill and see npcs whacking on a radar, and of course i loved the taun taun babies sliding on the ice shelf... although we should be able to drop them off the edge for a title... "Nasty Babysitter" or Harbinger of cruelty" or something lol...   OH and the ice fishing one !!! that was a neat Suprise.

 

• What was your least favorite Encounter and why? I can't remember which one on hoth it was, but it had a kill counter X30 npcs and that felt like a slog... even though it wasn't. perhaps that was bugged showing the kill count required............ which follows on to my next comment. What i really enjoyed, was the change to percentage of task completion instead of a tally count, I am not entirely sure why i like this aspect better but it "feels better?" just the progression of doing actions... 

 

• Please mention any bugs you encountered. There was some double up icons on the quick bar for the Hoth dynamic quest Lava suit testing; o and some of the fish shadows on the ice fishing one.... the  pathways are bugged they move and then spring back instantly to a location....like a yoyo slow one way then ZING reset 

 

I am really looking forward to playing the dynamic quests on Tatooine once i have had my fill of Hoth. I think at one stage on Hoth I counted 22-24? available dynamics on the map screen... I thought it was exciting to see them! I think players who are questing on Hoth will really enjoy them. I enjoyed going to Hoth just for the Dynamic quests!!!!

 

This is a step in the right direction. I think the rewards are acceptable and the right value.

 

oh one last thing... I dont know how practical or possible it is...but  if you could add some audio to the dynamic quest areas, when the event is triggered that would be very immersive. the lack of audio change on hoth for example is wearing quite thin.

did different members of the team do the Tatooine Dynamic events?

Tatooine is terrible. SEVERAL of the quests are bugged. I experienced a couple quest bugs on Hoth only

The NPC kill counts are too high. (The tally counts are a real deterrent, go back to showing percentages. most of the quests on tatooine are tally counts) 

I ran out of quests to test. This never happened on Hoth.  I used all quick travel and legacy stuff to move efficiently on Hoth.  Tatooine, I had to wait for quest timers to generate more. on Hoth i could open my map and see 20+ on Tatooine I could see 3.... the bugged ones.

The ONLY memorable quest on Tat is blowing up the piggies and making them fly into the Salac. 

Tatooine needs serious attention.

I like the idea behind it. (Hoth was amazing) but Tat dynamic events execution is terrible.

 

** edited to say.... I really enjoyed the experience on Hoth; Tatooine felt terrible, i couldn't wait until it was over. felt like a grind.

Edited Sunday at 05:39 AM by Clonelimit

[geofraynils]

Hi, 
 

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
  Yes
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
  It's long to go from an encounter to another, sometime more than completing the encounter.
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
  not sure, didn't complete that musch atm.
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
  yes
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
  no, more teleportation points could help, like near resurrection droids and only available when encounters are there.
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
   yes
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
   yes
• other things
  I didn't check at that time if it's already in the mecanics, but i'd like "invasions" encounters and/or some kind of encounters to be only available in pvp instances and killing players count on the objective as well as npcs. It would be nice this kind of encounters count on both sides, like rep is invading empire base (rep player have objective to kill imp players and npc + imp players have objective to kill rep players and npc - both at the same time)

[phalczen]

Did three so far on Republic Tatooine.

Encountered this bug with the Weary Travelers DE:

Weary Travelers dynamic encounter, only injured travelers spawn, and only one spawns, and if you leave the area searching for other weary travelers, you end up loosing all the supplies you picked up and there is nothing you can click on to acquire more supplies.  This takes place at the Anchorhead speeder point for Republic Tatooine dynamic encounters.

[JattaGin]

Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?

Yes. In some cases, a little adjustment of the markers might make it even easier, e.g. for "Tread lightly" which led me and others up the cliff first.

Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?

Partially. Some of the missions are very far out, e.g. "Breezepunks" for rep side on Tatooine.

QUESTION @ DEVS: If you're able to add those dynamic encounters now, wouldn't this technology help adding additional QUICK TRAVEL points to the planets? I think it's a missed opportunity to add this QoL feature to the game. E.g. on Tatooine, rep players have a loooong ride down South, and vice versa for imp players. As it it, I will not again drive to "Breezepunks". It's just too far away from the "closest" taxi station / quick travel spot.

Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?

Gameplaywise? No. It was either kill red enemies or click blue items. But that's basically what this game is anyway.

Storywise? Yes. I liked the little stories, particularly the ones with different chapters/stages.

I like that things are happening now in areas where was just emptiness before.

But is this enough to do those missions more than once? No. Especially not for 50 tech fragments. I'm not doing anything for 50 tech fragments, as I have no use for those. Particularly with the cap still being so low (11.000).

Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?

My honest feedback is that every encounter should be shortened by 10%. In most cases, I was about to lose interest around the 70-80% completion mark. I had fun for a while, then it started feeling like a chore, particularly the fights, but also the "click only" missions like the concert promotion in Anchorhead. 2 less promotions = better.

Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?

Partially yes, but in some cases (see above) no. As I wrote, there is no chance I would do "Breezepunks" again as a rep player. It takes 3 times as long to drive there than to do the mission.

Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?

Yes. I have only one request to make things clearer. In the mission "Imperial Attack" on Tatooine, you have to first fight imperial attackers in Anchorhead. When you reached 100%, the mission will update and ask you to destroy the "Imperial Walker". However, I already destroyed it in the first stage, since there was no indication that there would be a second stage. So, either add to the mission description that there are stages, maybe already showing the next objective, but greyed out. Or make an item to respawn the walker manually. Or shorten the respawn timer (although this would be my least preferred option). At the end, it's not a big deal, but it was a bit disheartening to find out I destroyed the walker a minute too early (before reaching 100% clearance).

Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?

Yes. Either kill red mobs, click shiny blue items or click green NPCs/items and then the highlightened buttons in the appearing quickbar.

What was your favorite Encounter and why?

The questline for the band playing a gig in the cantina in Anchorhead. I loved that story. If it's technically possible, I would suggest that every player gets stage 1 first (rat attack), followed by stage 2 (promotion), and then the concert itself. In my case, I got the concert first, and thought "that's cool". And then the story unraveled basically backwards for me. Still very enjoyable though.

What was your least favorite Encounter and why?

The "Czerka Sabotage" in the Dune Sea was annoying, because all the mobs were dead all the time. That's probably not an issue on the live server, as there won't be that many players doing this mission as on the PTS this weekend. However, the main reason I dislike it, was that the "Unstable Czerka Droid Follower" is misaligned and blocked my camera view. Please fix this.

The other is "Breezepunks", because it takes too long to get there. Please add one quick travel spot to the South of Tatooine for rep players, and one to the North for imp players.  The mission itself is fine.

Generally, the missions with legendary opponents and very high HP seem problematic to me. Please make all encounters easily SOLOABLE. It will be difficult to find groups for these missions after a few weeks, when nobody will do these missions anymore! Then those missions become either impossible to finish or very annoying and time-consuming. E.g. some of those enemies on Tatooine had some 20.000-35.000 HP. That's doable. Others had some 70.000-95.000. That's too much. Maybe make it so that the maximum HP on Tatooine is 50.000 for those encounters?

Please mention any bugs you encountered.

As others have reported: The "Hidden Chain Invasion"'s lieutenant isn't spawning. It looks like there is a beacon one would have to click, but it's unclickable.

The second Java mission for rep players in the Dune Sea (the one where you have to defend them from attacking droids) didn't work for me. I always got shown someone else's progress and the mission didn't start for me. Tried several times throughout the day.

General feedback

While I like the idea of those dynamic encounters, I don't quite understand how this was prioritised before actual new content. This seems to be something like "Uprisings": generally interesting content which is nice to have in the game, but there is no proper incentive to play this content, and thus it will be abandoned by the players base. So, at the end, a lot of development time and resources were invested in something which won't bring in (I assume) much income back. It has been said plenty of times by plenty of players: You need to continue the main story faster and with more regular updates. That's what people might re-subscribe for. Will someone re-subscribe just because of dynamic encounters? I wouldn't bet on it.

As a player, I ask myself: Do I have a reason to do those missions? Not really. They yield 50 tech fragments. Tech fragments is the last thing I want in this game. So I would never think "Hey, let's do some dynamic encounters." So, when would I do them? When I am already on a planet for whatever reason. "Oh look, there is a dynamic encounter. Might as well drop by." Is that the intention? I doubt it. If you want players to revisit old planets through dynamic encounters, you need to offer better incentives. As it is, I would rather PAY 50 tech fragments to play those encounters than getting 50 tech fragments as a "reward". So please rethink your reward system. Add e.g. a couple of Conquest Commendations.

I assume you will have all kinds of achievements for the dynamic encounters. That's one way to make people play them, I suppose. But seriously, add something nicer as rewards. Give us an option to choose from different rewards. E.g. tech fragments, conquest commendations, a decoration, a random cartel market item, credits, event currencies, golden crafting materials crate etc. pp. Let me choose my reward, so that I am motivated doing those missions.

Nonetheless, overall I think dynamic encounters are a great addition to the game, and they are well made, so kudos to the devs for it. Thank you.

Edited Sunday at 03:18 PM by JattaGin

[DarkLordyd]

The Whitefang Blood Samples don't drop on the imp-side

[phalczen]

Mandalorian Menace

Republic Tatooine DE.  Located near the base in the jundland wastes.  Are there supposed to be regular Exchange NPCs around in addition to the Mandalorians?  The only ones that counted for my progress was the Exchange Captain and then i had to wait for him to respawn in order to complete the objective to kill the Captain specifically.  Also, destroying the weapon crates doesn't count in an area fashion to all participating players like it does for many of the DEs on Hoth.

[gabbymay]

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
  Easy to spot and find yeah
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
  For the most part
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
  Lots of quests to do are better than none
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
  some, but others take longer in different situations like when respawns are slow or there are other people taking over your objective
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
  travel to encounters feel really slow even at max speed sometimes- I've missed chances to finish a quest because time ran out on the objective by the time i could get there
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
  wasn't too hard to figure out
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
  i understood
• What was your favorite Encounter and why?
  favorite encounter was the Tatooine spaceport mission where we collect baby banthas that were on the loose- i thought i was cute and amusing to bribe the pack with sandwiches back into the crates  Though i would have liked a similar version with Gizkas hopping and running about
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
  - a few of my complaints with some missions is when i was unable to finish because some objectives take way too long and run out of time- like when certain percentile objectives take longer to complete versus gathering and killing, or respawns are too slow in spots full of people
  REALLY DID NOT LIKE that pub players can do Imperial quests and killing allies in [SHADOWS IN THE SNOW] these should really be faction locked to imps only. I was mortified to see Jedi Killing other Jedi- Are we not on the same team?
• Please mention any bugs you encountered.
  Aside from the main one where i haven't been able to complete a hidden chain mission because the lieutenant never spawned there are a couple I've found-
  -canisters on [scavengers tales 3] are not taking out the Czerka tracking droid shield? (was this the intention?)
  They are not clickable once placed down in spots (workaround is have large group just burning down the health through the shield)
  -didn't get credit for [Sand People Warband] even though was helping other players?
  -[unnecessary repairs] vents are stuck on and people run through and take dmg anyways- Damaged pressure regulator doesn't reset after someone else fixes it & doesn't count as credit either
  -arrived at [Under Fire] with 7minutes to spare but quest wouldn't progress passed assist the imperial squad. (i believe this was because i was a pub and not imp)
  (these were a few notes i wrote down in my first day playing, but overall these quests aren't too bad I'm still hanging about looking around for more)
  [republic assault] is defiantly bugged from completion
  [Maintaining Order] seems to be bugged the intimidate icon doesn't work on the outlaws- disappears when close to them- only reappears in spots far away with nothing around.
  -[White Maw Assault] finished objective but bugged and not able to be completed
  -[Mining accident] mines pop in an out of existence when i speed through the spot- didn't even realize was in an objective until i was being randomly attacked
  
  <>Wanted to also put down my thoughts about some improvements to be made with these new encounters
  -Played a low level 15 character and did an encounter and got 9547 exp for leveling (with xp boost) feels a little low, could be better but then again i haven't leveled in a while to compare it against flashpoint XP or Heroics
  -Firstly, really think there needs to be some credits added into the rewards in general for completing each mission- just 50 tech frags or EXP (for low leveling) are not enough for my time (i would rather just do heroics and skip it all together)
  -What about leveling gear for those skipping story and don't want to do heroics? Could Encounters be a enjoyable Solo alternative in terms of gameplay if they were added in?
  -Is there going to be a [Weekly] objective? i would be totally fine with one for doing like 10 planet encounters done in a day and move on to other things and not be too overwhelmed with just the Encounters the moment they go live
  -mount speed increase, or a few more quick travel or Taxi locations added would be helpful
  <>also wanted to add Encounters that help people- as an example: like fixing speeders or doing "nice things" would be a great opportunity to be rewarded with Light side points to give players more options to earn them outside of [STORY] and diplomacy missions & would also like to see more missions that do "mean things" and to be rewarded Dark side points, for that extra variety and choice of gameplay.

Edited Monday at 07:55 PM by gabbymay

[Skarlet_]

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters? I just did Hoth, but yes very easy.
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime? Yes very much so.
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives? Yes.
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters? I'd say so yes.
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable? Yes.
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters? Sort of, see my point #3 below.
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why? Yes.
• What was your favorite Encounter and why? I enjoyed the one where you had to take down a walker at the end, a few other players joined in.
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why? Unnecessary RepairsT The one where you had to fix the pressure regulator, I wasn't sure how to do it but I think it was because of #3 below. 
• Please mention any bugs you encountered. No bugs, everything seemed really polished and to just work. All the stuff I had issue with would be enhancement type ideas.

1. One thing that would be nice is to get a UI notification on the top of the screen when you complete the dynamic event that uses the same dynamic event icon as the one on the mini map.
2. Some of the events have a temporary skill panel that is used, however mine was hidden in my UI. Whenever there is an event that uses a temporary skill, would there be a way to add content to the description of the event that says (Temporary Skill Panel Used).

All in all, it seems like a great addition to the game and I'm excited to play them on production! 

[phalczen]

Bug and Feedback:  I would say that for Geonosian Warlord DE Republic Tatooine in the Jundland Wastes area, cross faction shared tagging appears to be working.  But again, the clicky objects for many of the tat DEs just do not have shared tagging credit, and I'm not sure whether that is intended behavior or not.  It can presumably be a little fun to "hop into the action" like you can for the "Imperials Attack!"-style DEs, but standing around waiting for glowing blue clickies to respawn defeats that purpose.  Unless you intend for people to group up for the majority of these DEs.  And honestly, if I needed another pointless thing for which to group, I would do Uprisings, because at least those have some decent speeders I'd like to acquire someday.

In general, the frequency of new DEs on Tatooine Republic side seems slower than on Hoth.  Is this intended?  I never had a play session on Hoth where I had exhausted all the DEs on the planet and was waiting around for a new one to pop up.

[bmxwasteland]

Spaceport Chaos Encounter has a few bugs, the wrangle bantha item can be used on already wrangled banthas to gain another also using the wrangle bantha item on the bantha cage grants a bantha, which I'm guessing is not intended

[Defel]

Overall I enjoyed the system. I streamed Hoth on Saturday and Tatooine on Sunday. I ran both an Imperial and Republic play through of each planet. I did my best to give feedback throughout the stream and answer the feedback questions. Here are the requested links to videos of the streams.

Day 1: Hoth
https://youtu.be/kkHkrzI9ERw

Day 2:Tatooine
https://youtu.be/T3zyLktUkNo

[AnimatedCallum]

Just finished playing through all the Republic and Empire encounters and figured now would be a good time to post the feedback! Overall loved it and super excited for it to come into the game 😄

 

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters? Yes
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime? Yes
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives? I would say more or less, but I think to make it slightly less tedious, I would argue for shared progression, at least between factions. A lot of the time we had various Republic toons all scrambling to click one objective. What I found a bit odd is some on Hoth were shared progression, even between Republic and Empire. While on Tatooine they were all individual.
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters? Yes but would also say see above, just to help with some of them. Especially ones where we all need to click the same object.
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable? Yes
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters? For most of them yes, however the 'Republic attack' on Imperial side Tatooine didn't show progression so was unclear there what the objectives were. Same with the White Maw assault on outpost Zerek.
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why? Yes
• What was your favorite Encounter and why? I loved the Imperial/Republic attacks, made it feel like a real battle was going on. Similar to the hidden chain attacks but those are bugged at the moment, however it made the planets just feel that much more alive. Also I love Fangle and want to see more of them 
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why? I would say any that required fighting to click on highlighted objects. Only because it made it less enjoyable and almost more competitive but not in a fun way.
• Please mention any bugs you encountered: Trying to avoid any of the ones I've already seen mentioned (EG Hidden chain lieutenant not spawning) Republic attack on Mos Isla and white maw assault on Zerek not showing objectives aside from picking up grenades. On the Tatooine encounter 'dust to dust' the narrator NPC is a 'White Maw Pirate' (I'm assuming this isn't intentional). Me and another player were also unable to complete the encounter where we kill the Tusken war group. No matter what we did we weren't able to get credit for it. On Hoth, Republic toons were getting Imperial specific encounters. As a Republic Jedi Knight, the encounter 'Shadows in the snow' was avaliable to me with the quest giver being an Imperial officer and requiring me to kill Jedi Shadows. I was also given Scout's honor however did not attempt this encounter as it ran out before I got there. 

 

Aside from these issues though, I think the new event is great. They all bring more life to the planets and gets people working together. They don't take very long so they're nice events to do while you're travelling across the worlds. I hope we get to see them on more planets in the future! Even though I've completed by 100 missions I'll continue to take part and have a bit of fun with them! Thank you!

Edited Sunday at 11:35 PM by AnimatedCallum

[LtGeneralGezlin]

On 10/18/2024 at 9:15 AM, JackieKo said:

Hi everyone!

Please answer the following questions about Dynamic Encounters. Feel free to also leave overall general feedback. 

Reiterating from the original PTS post, if you are streaming or recording your gameplay while on PTS, we would love to check out the VODs. Seeing players experience the content in real time is incredibly helpful, so feel free to post them here or DM them to me.

Additionally, players will be getting a very early look into 7.6 content at this stage. To set expectations, know that the content that will be released at this time is still a work in progress and not polished. You will run into unfinished work: placeholder art for interactables and NPCs or UI elements, encounters that are functional but have few "polish" touches like special enemy abilities, and even potentially bugs with encounters that prevent them from being completed. That doesn't mean you shouldn't report issues you see--please do!--but it does mean that you will see many improvements to these encounters as we continue development. We're looking forward to your feedback on the system itself and on individual encounters!

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
• What was your favorite Encounter and why?
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
• Please mention any bugs you encountered.

If you are reporting a bug, please clearly state that and if necessary, include steps that would allow us to reproduce said bug.
Please provide any additional comments you have about the system.

Thanks! 
 

I have finished about a fourth of the required Encounters for the achievements (I really need B1-SAL), and I have to say I am enjoying them! I hope that a Bantha Caf and Ice Kitten minipet might also come, as the Bantha Caf and Ice Kitten's are very cute. Overall, I really had a lot of fun doing them, as they are a mix of fun missions like the 

• Was it easy to locate Dynamic Encounters?
  • Yes! Having the icons on the map helps to locate them!
• Were you able to spend your play session going from Encounter to Encounter with little or no downtime?
  • Since I copied a Lvl 80 who hadn't started Tatooine or Hoth yet, there was a lot of downtime going from one Encounter to another. I think if I were taking a character through their Class Orgin Story, I would have little or no downtime doing the Encounters, as a lot of them are near or on the path to the Origin and Planetary Story objectives.
• Was there enough variety in Encounter objectives?
  • Yes, it was a nice mix of fun Missions like the "Ice Fishing" and "Tawn Fawn Fun" Encounters and the harder encounters like "King of the Wampas".
• Did it take a reasonable amount of time to complete Encounters?
  • Yes. But, I do think using "Defeat %" of enemies, instead of "Defeat 0/15" enemies is a little more confusing, and increases the time to complete some Encounters.
• Did the travel time between Encounters feel reasonable?
  • Yes, it did. Even with using Speeder Piloting III on my Gunslinger.
• Was it clear what you needed to do in Encounters?
  • Very clear.
• Did you generally understand what your character was being asked to do and why?
  • For the most part, yes! I will say, I think that for some objectives (For example, during the "Czerka Sabotage" Encounter, using "Defeat %" of enemies, instead of "Defeat 0/15" enemies is a little more confusing.
• What was your favorite Encounter and why?
  • Hoth: Ice Fishing (Wish I could use a chair emote when doing this encounter! Then I could truely be Ice fishing!
  • Hoth: Tawn Faun Fun (It would have been more fun if we could slide down the hill with the Taun Fauns)
  • Hoth: The Three Ice Kitten Encounters (I mean, come on... Kittens)
  • Tatooine: Sarlacc Snacktime (Feeding the Sarlacc some Gamorreans should keep him full for the next 4000 years)
  • Tatooine: Spaceport Chaos (Wrangling up little Bantha's is always fun, espically when they are cute.)
  • Tatooine: The Three Road Gig Encounters (Even an up and coming band needs the Voidhound's help!)
• What was your least favorite Encounter and why?
  • I didn't have any Encounters that I disliked.
• Please mention any bugs you encountered.
  • I'm not sure if this is a bug, or a side effect of this being an early version of 7.6, but a lot of the enemies that you encounter in the Dynamic Encounters are just standing there.
  • I've noticed that when hovering over some of the Dynamic Encounters icons on the map, some do not actually show WHICH Encounter it is, and instead show up as a blank window. This seems to happen more with the Encounters that could potentially drop a piece of Fitted or Hidden Chain armor.
  • During the Hidden Chain Invasion Encounter, the Hidden chain sharpshooters and Hidden Chain Bulwarks have no weapons, and are fighting with fists. It's funny to see the Sharpshooters using fists instead of guns, but I'm pretty sure this is a bug.
  • The quest "Over and Out" requires you to "transmit acquired encrypted data", but does not in the mission tracker window as a useable. Instead, you need to open your inventory, go to the mission items tab, and select the "Data Transmitter"
  • When clicking the quests in the Mission tracker, it opens the conquest window, instead of the mission journal window..
• Please provide any additional comments you have about the system.

  • The discourteous Patrons in the Road Gig 3 encounter could use a little variety, as they are all Weequay.

  • Increase rewards for each mission. 50 Tech Frags are nice, but we could use some more, like Credits, or even bring back the items that could be bought from the Planetary Commendation Vendors or Flashpoint armors from the 1.0 era. Or maybe different rewards for each Encounter: Maybe for the Ice Fishing quest: A stronghold deco of the fish in a tank? And a new Taun Faun pet for the "Tawn Faun Fun" Quest, or a holo deco of the Double Sunburns from the Road Gig Encounters.

  • Increase drop rates for the special armors, or add armor lockboxes as rewards for finishing the dynamic encounter mission. It's nice to have Fitted versions of the the old CM Chest pieces that were sold with mods, as well as finally getting the Hidden Chain armor (Goes great with the Hidden Chain Jetpack). The only downside is the drop rates for them are bad. Maybe allow all of the Encounters to drop pieces of the different armor sets?

  • Increase Drop rate for the Freckled Loth-cat Kitten from the "Little Kitten's Reward Pouch". Each time I did the Encounter, all I got was vendor junk. I get it's flavor for the quest, but I really need that Loth-Cat Kitten!