indelible Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I've been playing Star Wars now since the pre-launch began; I've levelled two characters, one to 32, the other to 36. On both characters I have encountered a most troubling situation: endless grind. Alderaan and Taris are poorly designed as worlds, often prompting you to run back and forth across the giant maps to kill 10 of something, with no care for the context it is placed in by the games story because everything is just so tedious and laborious. Alderoon redeemed itself somewhat with a vaguely interesting planet story. Aside from the main quest on Taris, the planet itself is just plain pants. The basic premise is: "we're going to destroy it." That premise leaves no real room for compelling story. And the game doesn't look like it's going to redeem itself any time soon. The main story quests are starting to become spaced out by endless "go here, kill this" quests or "go here, blow this up" quests. Whereas previous planets presented some interesting micro-stories, the writers seem to have largely given up caring about side content, and the game just compels you on the usual "kill and collect" fest that has been done to the nth degree hundreds of times before. I am still very much enjoying the game, but I just wanted to air that particular criticism in the hopes that Bioware do something to tidy it up. Even something simple like increasing base Speeder speed from 90% to 110%, and having the next two levels stack to 120 and 130 respectively. This would reduce the size of the planets but not diminish the scale intended and make the entire experience far more fluid. Just my two cents, anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GGTeMpLaR Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 leveling never became a grind for me, always found the story compelling and interesting just my 2 cents Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Valperion Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Why don't you send a ticket into customer service to give you a lv50 account. The games grind is just laughable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSykes Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I've been playing Star Wars now since the pre-launch began; I've levelled two characters, one to 32, the other to 36. On both characters I have encountered a most troubling situation: endless grind. Alderaan and Taris are poorly designed as worlds, often prompting you to run back and forth across the giant maps to kill 10 of something, with no care for the context it is placed in by the games story because everything is just so tedious and laborious. Alderoon redeemed itself somewhat with a vaguely interesting planet story. Aside from the main quest on Taris, the planet itself is just plain pants. The basic premise is: "we're going to destroy it." That premise leaves no real room for compelling story. And the game doesn't look like it's going to redeem itself any time soon. The main story quests are starting to become spaced out by endless "go here, kill this" quests or "go here, blow this up" quests. Whereas previous planets presented some interesting micro-stories, the writers seem to have largely given up caring about side content, and the game just compels you on the usual "kill and collect" fest that has been done to the nth degree hundreds of times before. I am still very much enjoying the game, but I just wanted to air that particular criticism in the hopes that Bioware do something to tidy it up. Even something simple like increasing base Speeder speed from 90% to 110%, and having the next two levels stack to 120 and 130 respectively. This would reduce the size of the planets but not diminish the scale intended and make the entire experience far more fluid. Just my two cents, anyway. Yep, welcome to MMO's, you can cover a turd(grinding) in 3 pounds of ketchup(story...with VOICE) but yet, it's still you eating a turd. No game will ever get rid of the grind until they stop this philosophy of WoW this, WoW that, kaching kaching kaching goes the piggy bank. Who knows OP, maybe in a few years we'll get a real MMO that wasn't designed with money as the pure priority, but a nice split among making money and having a good game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durzaka Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I wouldnt call it a grind, but compared to 1-30, 30+ difficulty and leveling speed change drastically. at level 37. if i pull 2 strong by accident and dont immediately CC one, i will die in about 10 seconds. Barely taking 1/2 of one of their hp bars with me. I wish the speed was more, but i can deal with it, what i dont like is how big the planets get. Half the time i spend more time on a speeder getting to quest objectives than i do completely the quest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mazing Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 If you think leveling is a grind...... hahha wait until you hit 50 it gets way worst. Heres a thread i made a few days ago about what i thought of being a level 50 http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=89456 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSykes Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 You want the rewards of an MMO without the questing/grinding/story aspect of the game? Go play Second Life. I don't care about the grind, but it'd be nice to have a MMO that wasn't the same treadmill, over and over and over and over because WoW did it and made a ton of money. I still believe that if WoW never became as big as it did, the genre as a whole would be a lot better off, but that's just the way it works. Maybe I'll develop my own MMO.... see you guys in 30 years when I finish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darthrevo Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 On both characters I have encountered a most troubling situation: endless grind. Alderaan and Taris are poorly designed as worlds, often prompting you to run back and forth across the giant maps to kill 10 of something, with no care for the context it is placed in by the games story because everything is just so tedious and laborious. i have yet to get to that level, but that is one of the things i really dont like about this game, and something that turned me away from several other mmo's including wow. You are always running back and forth all the time, instead of constantly moving forward or doing quests around a town/spaceport and then going onto another town/spaceport etc that gives you a sense of progression you seem to be constantly being dragged back cross entire maps. im not sure if its poor design or done to increase the amount of time you play by dragging it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SodaOfYoda Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I wouldnt call it a grind, but compared to 1-30, 30+ difficulty and leveling speed change drastically. at level 37. if i pull 2 strong by accident and dont immediately CC one, i will die in about 10 seconds. Barely taking 1/2 of one of their hp bars with me. I wish the speed was more, but i can deal with it, what i dont like is how big the planets get. Half the time i spend more time on a speeder getting to quest objectives than i do completely the quest. This. +1 There is definitely a change in mob placement and difficulty post Chapter 1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lerdoc Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 leveling never became a grind for me, always found the story compelling and interesting just my 2 cents This. This game have no grind at all compared to everything else I've played before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imtrick Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 If you think leveling is a grind...... hahha wait until you hit 50 it gets way worst. Heres a thread i made a few days ago about what i thought of being a level 50 Way to derail a thread to draw attention to yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeSamourai Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 (edited) +1 I'm enjoying my class quests (for the most part) and the planet quests (the main story arc), but the rest are getting tiresome. I've also noticed that I'm at a slight level gap now; haven't been doing flashpoints since Athiss, and I haven't been PvPing as much...somehow I'm almost a level and a half low for the area I'm going to next. I've looked EVERYWHERE for quests; only option is to do heroics or just grind/PvP...and I don't really want to do that. I notice that some planets are EXCELLENTLY setup for questing and go REALLY fast. Others....yea, they take HOURS and HOURS of basically shuttling from one end to the other just to talk to people. edit: Also, +1 with the person above discussing elites and mobs. I noticed it towards the end of Act 1: almost 1 elite per mob now = LOTs of extra time and care needs to be spent even to drive my speeder places Edited January 1, 2012 by LeSamourai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannic Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 I've been playing Star Wars now since the pre-launch began; I've levelled two characters, one to 32, the other to 36. On both characters I have encountered a most troubling situation: endless grind. Alderaan and Taris are poorly designed as worlds, often prompting you to run back and forth across the giant maps to kill 10 of something, with no care for the context it is placed in by the games story because everything is just so tedious and laborious. Alderoon redeemed itself somewhat with a vaguely interesting planet story. Aside from the main quest on Taris, the planet itself is just plain pants. The basic premise is: "we're going to destroy it." That premise leaves no real room for compelling story. And the game doesn't look like it's going to redeem itself any time soon. The main story quests are starting to become spaced out by endless "go here, kill this" quests or "go here, blow this up" quests. Whereas previous planets presented some interesting micro-stories, the writers seem to have largely given up caring about side content, and the game just compels you on the usual "kill and collect" fest that has been done to the nth degree hundreds of times before. I am still very much enjoying the game, but I just wanted to air that particular criticism in the hopes that Bioware do something to tidy it up. Even something simple like increasing base Speeder speed from 90% to 110%, and having the next two levels stack to 120 and 130 respectively. This would reduce the size of the planets but not diminish the scale intended and make the entire experience far more fluid. Just my two cents, anyway. I agree wholeheartedly that faster speeders might help out in alleviating some of the feeling of endless run grind. It does seem like you spend more time travelling from point A to point Z, with the occasional stop for cut-scenes, than doing anything else. I just don't know what BW was thinking with their 90%, 100%, 110%, speed differences. You barely even notice a 10% speed difference. They turned off "match armor to chest" because they didn't like how it made players feel like they weren't progressing, but I can pay 8 times as much for speeder training to notice a 20% speed increase? It's like they knew there wasn't enough to the game to keep people from hitting 50 in a third the time as most MMO's, so they have artificially dragged things out. Speeders that are slower than they should be in this game setting are only one way. Another is with class quests that force you to go back to spaceport and go through the mind-numbingly boring and pointless process of getting dismounted because speeders for some arbitrary reason don't work in spaceports, entering the hangar (area transition,) boarding your ship (loading screen,) finding some random area on your map and "flying" there, then getting off your ship in the new area (loading screen,) leaving the hangar (area transition,) running through a spaceport where you again mysteriously can't use your speeder, taking a taxi to a city and then finally being able to use your speeder to find the quest-giver, enduring a much longer than normal cut-scene where the quest-giver then tells you to go to another planet, then starting the process all over again. Before you know it, you've gone 45 minutes without actually doing anything. It's highly aggravating to me. When I reached the end of ACT I on my BH I spent something like 2 full hours to complete what amounted to 2 quests where I spent maybe a sum total of 10 minutes actually fighting something. The rest was travelling from Alderaan to Dromund Kaas back to Nar Shadaa, back to Dromund Kaas, to Mandalore, back to Dromund Kaas, back to Mandalore, then on to Taris... It is really poorly designed and obviously meant to slow you down. It might be different if space travel gave you the actual feeling of travelling somewhere, but in this game it doesn't. It gives you the feeling running through instance after instance with multiple loading screens on the way, so that you can be rewarded with a 2 minute cut-scene. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indelible Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Whilst I appreciate some of the more informative responses, generally your "welcome to MMOs" catchphrase is becoming tired and old. Bioware demonstrated prior to level 30 that there didn't need to be any grind at all. Side quests could have compelling story behind them, and the main story line felt truly epic at times. Since level 30 I'm finding that side quests are far less compelling, and the meaning behind them - inclusive of the motivation to find out what happens next - is just gone. They are becoming stale and dry, akin to standard quest mechanics in other games. To suggest that an MMO has to have grind is to totally misunderstand game development. MMOs don't HAVE to have grind; it's just easier for developers when they do. Instead of coming up with interesting ways to prolong the levelling process, or prolong gear attainment, or whatever action it is you as a developer are looking to prolong, you simply increase the amount of X actions required to achieve X benefits, and that is not creative development. That's effectively factory-based game developed and something that Bioware and its ilk would do well to avoid. I'm not levying unfounded or outrageous criticism at the game. I am a stoic supporter of what Bioware have presented with SWTOR. However in this instance, among a few others, I have found Bioware wanting and am intent on pointing that out. No game is perfect, and this is an area that Bioware can improve on. (Also: Grinding does not JUST limit itself to the repetitive nature of a single task. It can mean a multitude of things to a multitude of people, including the act of performing a variety of different but equally shallow and meaningless acts to gain a level... which is what I'm talking about). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Son_of_Liberty Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Yep, welcome to MMO's, you can cover a turd(grinding) in 3 pounds of ketchup(story...with VOICE) but yet, it's still you eating a turd. No game will ever get rid of the grind until they stop this philosophy of WoW this, WoW that, kaching kaching kaching goes the piggy bank. Who knows OP, maybe in a few years we'll get a real MMO that wasn't designed with money as the pure priority, but a nice split among making money and having a good game. World of Warcraft was one of the first MMO's that focused on reducing the overall grind. Previous to that games, like EQ could take months or even years in some cases to hit maximum level. Trust me though, if it were possible to deliver solid time consuming game play without the grind, it would be done. Its very foolish to assume people only make games for money. Why don't you talk to some of actual folks who work in the game industry. In most cases they are under paid and fully of capable of making double the money in other fields. The reason they stay is to make games. Their is nothing in this world like being a part of group that makes a game that is adorned by fans. Entertaining millions and knowing you had a part of it is a rush. As for the grind, its really not that bad. I leveled my first character to 50 in very little time. This included me watching all my cut scenes and skipping allot of Flashpoints and Heroics. The only planet I felt was rough had to be Voss. Once I got their the quests seemed allot harder compared to earlier but teaming up with a guild mate we able to go through them quickly. Anyway my advice grab every quest possible and complete them all before returning to your hub. Also remember that your class quests generally bounce you from hub to hub, so try to keep your class quest caught up with the hub you are in. This will result in less travel time and more questing which is equals more xp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightrode Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 leveling never became a grind for me, always found the story compelling and interesting just my 2 cents What he said. I think a lot of people feel this way because of Alderaan. It gets better after that. I personally hated Alderaan and felt like I was stuck there forever. After that though, the game gets more interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamus_Divinus Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 (edited) Politely disagree with the OP. I loved the Imperial Taris storyline. Infact I haven't had a planet storyline I haven't really liked. Am on Corellia atm (penultimate planet). Opinions are by nature subjective so I'm not surprised ours differ so much Edited January 1, 2012 by Jamus_Divinus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krinaman Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 If normal gameplay feels like a grind then you should probably find a new game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audix Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 i think the leveling is to fast, too easy, lower the xp rates.... there's no such thing as grind in this game, even the crafting has no grind, go play Aion for a month and post back in a week and tell me SWTOR is still a grind, imagine grinding mobs for days on end for crafting mats and when you finaly get them all, you fail the craft.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannic Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 i think the leveling is to fast, too easy, lower the xp rates.... there's no such thing as grind in this game, even the crafting has no grind, go play Aion for a month and post back in a week and tell me SWTOR is still a grind, imagine grinding mobs for days on end for crafting mats and when you finaly get them all, you fail the craft.... Ahh, but you see, this is what happens when half your grind is running back and forth not doing anything except unlocking the next cut-scene. If you're not totally enthralled with the story it's actually worse than a mob grind because your not doing anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mendellium Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Grinding = killing monsters over and over again to level up, without any sort of quest or story line involved That just simply does not happen in this game. There is no grinding in this game. This isn't a difference of opinion; you're factually wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indelible Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 Grinding = killing monsters over and over again to level up, without any sort of quest or story line involved That just simply does not happen in this game. There is no grinding in this game. This isn't a difference of opinion; you're factually wrong. As I stated in my follow up post, the term "grind" applies to any form of repetitive or meaningless action. Running back and forth between quest givers can be a grind if it is done enough. Completing endlessly meaningless quests that offer no compelling story can also be a grind. Terms are not so bound as to not have multiple meanings ;D Tis the joys of the English language. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audix Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 Ahh, but you see, this is what happens when half your grind is running back and forth not doing anything except unlocking the next cut-scene. If you're not totally enthralled with the story it's actually worse than a mob grind because your not doing anything. Talking to npc's is not a grind... its just anoying sometimes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kit_Furso Posted January 1, 2012 Share Posted January 1, 2012 As I stated in my follow up post, the term "grind" applies to any form of repetitive or meaningless action. Running back and forth between quest givers can be a grind if it is done enough. Completing endlessly meaningless quests that offer no compelling story can also be a grind. Terms are not so bound as to not have multiple meanings ;D Tis the joys of the English language. Changing a term's meaning unnoticed and then saying "but I meant this by that term" also has a name though, it's called a strawman argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indelible Posted January 1, 2012 Author Share Posted January 1, 2012 (edited) Changing a term's meaning unnoticed and then saying "but I meant this by that term" also has a name though, it's called a strawman argument. I've not changed the terms meaning at all. In other MMOs it is quite common for people to refer to any repetitive action as a grind. Quest grind, PvP grind, instance grind, raid grind... They're all accepted terms. In this instance I'm clearly referring to a particular type of grind, a series of action that are repeated over and over again for the same - often minimal - rewards. How you've taken that and managed to fathom some kind of heinous redefinition of the term baffles me. Well done though. Such feats are beyond me Edit: Oh and also... arguably your retort to my original commentary is far closer to being a straw man argument than anything I've said. Edited January 1, 2012 by indelible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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