Official [H] Star Wars:The Old Republic Thread

[timtheenchantor]

So I'm playing on the same server as a friend, and we both go to Ilum and are standing in the same place yet can't see each other until one of us switches from "Ilum 2" to "Ilum 1"... how much more "educated" do I need to be to realize that if they can do that then they should be able to have an "Ilum 3 - 300" too? Now just instead of having me pick the instance once I'm in the game world, let me choose which instance I'll go into before I even load into the game. No need to segment me off from playing with friends that are on another "server" like they do currently. No need to worry about balancing server populations. Just scale the number of instances available per zone by the current number of players total. Global Agenda (and I'm sure other games as well) took this approach and it works just fine.

You know, I wasn't sarcastic in my response. So I am not sure why you need to put quotes around "educated" like I am insulting your intelligence, because I'm not.

I merely stated that we do not have a in-depth knowledge of how the systems behind the engine work. For example, Blizzard needed to re-tool many parts of it's engine to incorporate cross-server queues and LFG tools (not to mention server systems and infrastructure). Whose to say it isn't the situation here? One can make a very valid argument on why they didn't do this in the first place - but we probably won't ever know. We got what we got and that's that.

If you look at the underlying message of my post, you can see I agree with you. I just think Bioware is in a precarious position. Did they put themselves there? Yes and no.

 

[crackbone]

I've been trolling this thread awhile and I tend to side with the "be patient the game just launched things will get fixed" camp. However, from a business perspective, they should probably have some shit well taken care of by now. All I know about the game is the small beta period I had and what I've been reading online, so I'm sure my opinions are fairly warped.

Part of me is starting to think how did this miss some of this stuff? Did they not play other MMOs and say "Hey I like this feature, lets be sure to add this come launch". I mean why not have certain functional elements that clearly are working (Dungeon Finder, which I have a complicated love hate relationship with in WoW...another thread someday). I get that some of this stuff has been implemented relatively recently, like DF, but still people like it. Why not include it?

I can see the cycle happening where WoW or Aion or someone releases a feature, TOR likes it, implements it then BAM another cool thing comes out and they just keep going on in an endless pit of development. Some of these things are basic though, /roll? Shrug, not a good sign IMO.

I'd be sticking around too, but it appears that it's going to be for naught. It's going to take Bioware a considerable amount of time to put those type "MMO features" in the game.

As it stands, other than gear grinding, there's nothing much to be done once you hit the endgame.

No crafting(meaningful), no LFG, no cross server warzones, nothing to keep the action moving. Lots of standing around in fleet.

Now, since according to those 1.1.5 patch notes that are up on the test server, they are killing open world PvP entirely, I'm moving on.

No use in handing Bioware $15 a month for fixes that may or may not come.

Game just isn't long term fun after you hit 50.

 

[drakhon]

Now, since according to those 1.1.5 patch notes that are up on the test server, they are killing open world PvP entirely, I'm moving on.

How so?

Edit: Never mind, I see it. I assume you were referring to:

Players can now build credit towards the Battle for Ilum daily and weekly missions by playing Warzones.

Do note that the bag system is supposed to be going away entirely in 1.2, so this may just be a temporary measure.

 

[CryingGod]

I think I am done with the game now. Hit 50, farmed a crap ton of bags (25ish) and all I have to show for it is a full set of crappy centurion gear, and my champion lightsaber. How can people actually consider this system better than the random drops we had before? At least in the last system I got a lot of mods/enhancements I could put in other gear. At this rate by the time I hit battlemaster I might have nearly a full set of champion gear(lol).

 

[Dan_D]

I think I am done with the game now. Hit 50, farmed a crap ton of bags (25ish) and all I have to show for it is a full set of crappy centurion gear, and my champion lightsaber. How can people actually consider this system better than the random drops we had before? At least in the last system I got a lot of mods/enhancements I could put in other gear. At this rate by the time I hit battlemaster I might have nearly a full set of champion gear(lol).

It's better because many people got assraped by the gear. They worked hard for gear bags and never got anything besides a lousy 3 centurion commendations. I knew a guy who opened over 20 bags and never got more than 2 items out of it. Out of 25 bags in the old system I got luckier with 7 payouts but sadly 2 of those were duplicates of an item I already had. Thus dropping the useful payout to 2. With that system if your luck was shit you didn't have even centurion gear to show for your efforts. It blew goats. At least with the newone, every 10 bags you get to buy a large piece of gear like your chest piece or leggings. So the payout may be slightly worse for some but you get gear more consistently and you actually have control over what you get. So duplicates are almost impossible to get. My duplicates were all of fucking Champion lightsabers which aren't moddable. So I literally had nothing to show for those.

This way is FAR better.

 

[Climber]

I agree. The system isnt perfect but it is far better than what was in place previously. The pvp is getting stagnant for me which is a rarity. My sentinel is a beast in pvp but I'm not enjoying it any more. It just seems stagnant now. Cant really explain it; however, I think I'm to the point where this is a place holder till GW2 is out.

 

[Dan_D]

I agree. The system isnt perfect but it is far better than what was in place previously. The pvp is getting stagnant for me which is a rarity. My sentinel is a beast in pvp but I'm not enjoying it any more. It just seems stagnant now. Cant really explain it; however, I think I'm to the point where this is a place holder till GW2 is out.

I have to admit, as much as I've enjoyed this game up to now, I don't really feel like leveling one of my alts or continuing the PvP grind into Battlemaster gear. I really want to do some more of the operations and hard mode flashpoints, but the lack of a decent LFG tool is killing me. Seems like such an easy fix. I've definitely seen the PvP drop off a lot in the last two weeks. It's getting so bad that I can hardly complete my daily / weekly's anymore. It almost seems like making the shitty warzone matches count is kind of like CPR to keep PvP alive at this point. Not really a good sign for the longevity of the game I'm afraid. It's basically a good game but it needs a few minor adjustments to keep things interesting.

 

[mdk30]

From the latest PTR patch notes:

"Players can now build credit towards the Battle for Ilum daily and weekly missions by playing Warzones."

Thank you. Hilarious that I don't even have to go to shit-ass Ilum to complete the daily/weekly quests for it anymore, but THANK YOU nonetheless. At least we can all agree that it's completely pointless and broken. lol

 

[cageymaru]

You know I've never been to Ilum to pvp. I watched a few youtube videos of it and thought what a clusterfuck. Someone told me that I have to get killing blows to get armaments and as a tank I knew it was pointless to try. If it wasn't for False Emperor heroic I wouldn't set foot out there.

 

[polydiol]

I dont know what is wrong with me - I'm the biggest star wars fanboy in the whole galaxy and i enjoy bioware games but I can't get myself to play anymore - not even for the sake of trying to use my subscription before it runs out.

 

[drakhon]

Someone told me that I have to get killing blows to get armaments and as a tank I knew it was pointless to try.

They lied. It's unclear exactly what kill credit is based on, but it's definitely not killing blows and, as a Juggernaut tank (the one with the least ranged capability!), I have little trouble getting the credit I need.

Still, it is usually a clusterfuck, and when it's a clusterfuck at the gates of the base, it's slow for everyone.

 

[Dan_D]

They lied. It's unclear exactly what kill credit is based on, but it's definitely not killing blows and, as a Juggernaut tank (the one with the least ranged capability!), I have little trouble getting the credit I need.

Still, it is usually a clusterfuck, and when it's a clusterfuck at the gates of the base, it's slow for everyone.

All that seems to be required is tagging a given enemy. If they die within a certain amount of time once tagged, you get credit whether you got the killing blow or not. In Huttball and warzones, the killing blow does count as something more than a simple kill. Killing blows grant additional medals. But in open PvP, it doesn't make any difference. If you tagged them, even with a non-damaging stun, it counts. Using intimidating roar, and smash, I rack up the kills pretty easily in open world PvP. In warzones, your life span is potentially much longer so the kill counts are a little bit less. Still I usually get credit for about 25 or so kills in a given match. Sometimes more, rarely less.

 

[hfk]

Were you even playing at launch? If you were, you'd recall that for the first few days the queue just to get to the character selection screen was close to two hours... at least it was on mine as well as the servers some of my friends' were on. Bioware's "solution" was to add a ton of new servers and spread out the player base. To their credit, it "worked," because the queue quickly went down to a bearable 10-20 minutes during primetime. I say "worked" however, because as we all know now, the server pops are pretty low across the board due to this course of action.

The thing I find hilarious is that their own, current tech already instances damn near everything which leads us into asking the question: why are characters bound to a specific server in the first place?! Why not just let me log in, select my character, and thenselect a server, or an instance, or whatever? It boggles my mind that they didn't go this route... would've solved so many problems for them and players.

This is the probably the best mmo since WoW, and it's the star wars franchise. Populations will rise. I think the keyword on this issue is patience for now. I think they did the right thing. Start with relatively few servers and if they are getting bombed then expand, but they expanded too much, there's an element of hit and miss to that. About the second thing, perhaps it's too difficult to manage that approach. It requires that your character data are local on your computer which is a cataclysmic idea.. or that all the servers share everything, which probably is quite impractical and difficult technically in terms of network effectivity. I'm sure all mmo programmers have thought about that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[RealityCrunch]

I've always enjoyed MMOs with a free server system. This way during off-peak hours players would condense up into a few servers, and during peak hours would spread themselves out, always leaving heavily populated servers to play on at any time of the day or low populated servers if you wanted some peace and quiet. If you couldn't find a group on one server, hop on over to another and try there. The item you want isn't selling on one, try another. The quest mob you want is heavily camped on one, try another. Etc.

 

[hfk]

I've always enjoyed MMOs with a free server system. This way during off-peak hours players would condense up into a few servers, and during peak hours would spread themselves out, always leaving heavily populated servers to play on at any time of the day or low populated servers if you wanted some peace and quiet. If you couldn't find a group on one server, hop on over to another and try there. The item you want isn't selling on one, try another. The quest mob you want is heavily camped on one, try another. Etc.

I can see those benefits but how about cheats/hacks?

 

[khaki]

All that seems to be required is tagging a given enemy. If they die within a certain amount of time once tagged, you get credit whether you got the killing blow or not. In Huttball and warzones, the killing blow does count as something more than a simple kill. Killing blows grant additional medals. But in open PvP, it doesn't make any difference. If you tagged them, even with a non-damaging stun, it counts. Using intimidating roar, and smash, I rack up the kills pretty easily in open world PvP. In warzones, your life span is potentially much longer so the kill counts are a little bit less. Still I usually get credit for about 25 or so kills in a given match. Sometimes more, rarely less.

What also works is buffing ops members who do the killing.

 

[Buxaroo]

I'd be sticking around too, but it appears that it's going to be for naught. It's going to take Bioware a considerable amount of time to put those type "MMO features" in the game.

As it stands, other than gear grinding, there's nothing much to be done once you hit the endgame.

No crafting(meaningful), no LFG, no cross server warzones, nothing to keep the action moving. Lots of standing around in fleet.

Now, since according to those 1.1.5 patch notes that are up on the test server, they are killing open world PvP entirely, I'm moving on.

No use in handing Bioware $15 a month for fixes that may or may not come.

Game just isn't long term fun after you hit 50.

Spot on. This game is on hiatus for me until they add all of the following or else it's jsut a waste of time:

1. Space combat that's not a consolized piece of shit rail shooter, more in line with what Star Wars Galaxies did nearly 8 YEARS ago perfectly. Or even Tie Fighter did 17 YEARS ago.

2. PVP that has some meaning besides a constant boring gear grind. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, used it to clean up mountain dew. A giant snorefest. And also they need a sandbox element to the PVP engame, maybe a planet where factions fight over resources (aka what EVE has, except without the 1200-person fleet battles because we all know this crappy modified Hero engine isn't capable of 16 man fights, let along battles numbering in the hundreds )

3. Crafting that is useful for level 50's. There is NO reason whatsoever to be a crafter of anything once you reach level 50. Nothing you make has any use for those who reach level 50. Everyone just goes biochem because it's the only useful thing there is right now. I am sorry if crafting doesn't fit into their "story-driven MMO", but no matter what, a good MMO needs crafting to have some kind of community. It keeps a lot of people happy across the board. It definitely can't HURT ffs.

4. Galaxy Trade Network that isn't the same Hero engine knockoff that was in STO (the GTN is pretty much the same crap that I remember when I first tried STO, except worse). You know, a Galaxy Trade Network that is connected to other trade hubs. Why call it Galaxy when it aint? That's just stupid. And I didn't even touch on the fact that the filtering and searching and everything else looks like it was made by some office temp with a bad attitude. Come on, $150 million for this game? And they can't even have a proper trading mechanic for the game that every other MMO has?

5. Performance issues. You know you have a problem with the game when people with i7's and 6990's have FPS issues on Ilum and in warzones with 16 people. Seriously? In this day and age of EVE Online with 2000-man battles, Battlefield 3 with 64 players, and even old Planetside with hundreds of players, this outdated, old style looking game can't handle a paltry amount of players on the screen at the same time? I thought they wanted this game to be "accessible".

If they can fix the majority of the above, I will start forking over $15 a month again. But with other MMO's coming out that look far more interesting like Guild Wars 2, Secret World, Planetside 2, etc, there is no reason for me to pay $15 a month to sit in fleet trolling the WoWheads and running the same flashpoints over and over again. And this is coming from a huge Star Wars/Bioware fan.

 

[mdk30]

This is the probably the best mmo since WoW, and it's the star wars franchise. Populations will rise. I think the keyword on this issue is patience for now. I think they did the right thing. Start with relatively few servers and if they are getting bombed then expand, but they expanded too much, there's an element of hit and miss to that. About the second thing, perhaps it's too difficult to manage that approach. It requires that your character data are local on your computer which is a cataclysmic idea.. or that all the servers share everything, which probably is quite impractical and difficult technically in terms of network effectivity. I'm sure all mmo programmers have thought about that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Correction incoming. It's called a database. Character data doesn't have to be stored on my local computer at all. It doesn't have to be stored on any ONE specific server that I also login to and play their game on. The database server/s can be completely separate from any of the servers that handle the login process, which can be completely separate from the servers that handle the processing of in-game movement/combat/everything else. This is really not a new concept at all.

 

[Dan_D]

What also works is buffing ops members who do the killing.

I wasn't aware of that one.

 

[mdk30]

I wasn't aware of that one.

In warzones you get credit for the extra damage/healing other players do from having your buff too.

 

[Dan_D]

Spot on. This game is on hiatus for me until they add all of the following or else it's jsut a waste of time:

1. Space combat that's not a consolized piece of shit rail shooter, more in line with what Star Wars Galaxies did nearly 8 YEARS ago perfectly. Or even Tie Fighter did 17 YEARS ago.

2. PVP that has some meaning besides a constant boring gear grind. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, used it to clean up mountain dew. A giant snorefest. And also they need a sandbox element to the PVP engame, maybe a planet where factions fight over resources (aka what EVE has, except without the 1200-person fleet battles because we all know this crappy modified Hero engine isn't capable of 16 man fights, let along battles numbering in the hundreds )

3. Crafting that is useful for level 50's. There is NO reason whatsoever to be a crafter of anything once you reach level 50. Nothing you make has any use for those who reach level 50. Everyone just goes biochem because it's the only useful thing there is right now. I am sorry if crafting doesn't fit into their "story-driven MMO", but no matter what, a good MMO needs crafting to have some kind of community. It keeps a lot of people happy across the board. It definitely can't HURT ffs.

4. Galaxy Trade Network that isn't the same Hero engine knockoff that was in STO (the GTN is pretty much the same crap that I remember when I first tried STO, except worse). You know, a Galaxy Trade Network that is connected to other trade hubs. Why call it Galaxy when it aint? That's just stupid. And I didn't even touch on the fact that the filtering and searching and everything else looks like it was made by some office temp with a bad attitude. Come on, $150 million for this game? And they can't even have a proper trading mechanic for the game that every other MMO has?

5. Performance issues. You know you have a problem with the game when people with i7's and 6990's have FPS issues on Ilum and in warzones with 16 people. Seriously? In this day and age of EVE Online with 2000-man battles, Battlefield 3 with 64 players, and even old Planetside with hundreds of players, this outdated, old style looking game can't handle a paltry amount of players on the screen at the same time? I thought they wanted this game to be "accessible".

If they can fix the majority of the above, I will start forking over $15 a month again. But with other MMO's coming out that look far more interesting like Guild Wars 2, Secret World, Planetside 2, etc, there is no reason for me to pay $15 a month to sit in fleet trolling the WoWheads and running the same flashpoints over and over again. And this is coming from a huge Star Wars/Bioware fan.

I'll address each of your points one by one. I think you are a bit off base or at least unrealistic with some of them.

1. Space combat that's not a consolized piece of shit rail shooter, more in line with what Star Wars Galaxies did nearly 8 YEARS ago perfectly. Or even Tie Fighter did 17 YEARS ago.

I love how everyone expects X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter II out of this. I didn't play Star Wars Galaxies Jump to Lightspeed because the core game was so shitty that an expansion of any kind wasn't appealing to me at all. That being said while I think some people's expectations are a bit out of whack here, I'd like to see it taken off rails with more traditional controls for that type of setup.

2. PVP that has some meaning besides a constant boring gear grind. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, used it to clean up mountain dew. A giant snorefest. And also they need a sandbox element to the PVP engame, maybe a planet where factions fight over resources (aka what EVE has, except without the 1200-person fleet battles because we all know this crappy modified Hero engine isn't capable of 16 man fights, let along battles numbering in the hundreds )

I'm not much of an MMO guy as this is one of two I've ever enjoyed enough to play for any length of time. So I am not going to pretend I know jack shit about the Hero engine. That being said, I like how you compare a game like SWTOR to a space combat MMO game with crappy graphics and seem to expect anywhere near the playability with 2,000 people online or whatever. And I know you'll come back and say that you don't expect 2,000 people to be able to play at once, but whatever. I'm going to go out on a limb and say a tiny ship lacking in a whole lot of detail on a space background which is little more than blank / black space with some dots for stars is a bit less demanding than a full on rendered city / area with characters who probably have more polygons than half a dozen EVE ships do. Even with really detailed ships, the back drop is as easy to render as anything could be. Space combat in any game has always been less than graphically demanding. I don't care if we are talking about TIE Fighter, Descent Freespace 2, or the existing space combat in SWTOR. It always runs well.

While I think your performance expectations are somewhat unrealistic, I will say that I agree with you about the PvP gear grind. I'm at valor 56 and just can't see myself grinding all the way to valor 60. I've been playing for weeks to get this far. I've got full Champion gear and anything now just feels like a boring grind with little reward for my efforts. This system needs to be addressed and supposedly big changes are coming in the next major patch. We'll see. And yeah, we need another open world area besides Ilum, or Ilum needs a radical redesign. The open area on Tatooine is always a ghost town, so that one was a bust.

3. Crafting that is useful for level 50's. There is NO reason whatsoever to be a crafter of anything once you reach level 50. Nothing you make has any use for those who reach level 50. Everyone just goes biochem because it's the only useful thing there is right now. I am sorry if crafting doesn't fit into their "story-driven MMO", but no matter what, a good MMO needs crafting to have some kind of community. It keeps a lot of people happy across the board. It definitely can't HURT ffs.

BioWare is well aware of the complaints people have concerning crafting. Overall I think the system that's in place is good, except that most of what you can craft isn't worth a damn at level 50. I'll let you in on a secret that the biochem or bust crowd doesn't seem to be aware of. Every profession actually has something they can do which is useful at level 50. Artifice for example can make saber / blaster crystals and Rakata relics. Synthweaving can make some Rakata armor. I'm sure the other professions are the same way. What is the problem is that many of these really great items that you can make are bind on pickup which means they can't be sold on the GTN. Furthermore the requirements with regard to materials are far too steep as it stands. I've sent my companions out on more than 10 missions and I don't even have half the corusca gems I need to make another relic. That's just bullshit. The biometric crystal alloy requirement for anything good also blows goats. You've got to grind the shit out of hard mode flashpoints and operations to get it.

4. Galaxy Trade Network that isn't the same Hero engine knockoff that was in STO (the GTN is pretty much the same crap that I remember when I first tried STO, except worse). You know, a Galaxy Trade Network that is connected to other trade hubs. Why call it Galaxy when it aint? That's just stupid. And I didn't even touch on the fact that the filtering and searching and everything else looks like it was made by some office temp with a bad attitude. Come on, $150 million for this game? And they can't even have a proper trading mechanic for the game that every other MMO has?

Connecting the GTN to the other servers would bring traffic up and allow for a slightly better economy and a reason to craft items for sale. The problem is that most of the good shit can't be bought or sold and the requirements to make some of the items are ridiculous. So that basically throws most of that out the window. I wish they'd do something to make crafting more appealing, but I'm not sure that connecting the GTN's of all the servers together would actually be anything more than a technical pain in the ass. I think if they could make crafting more useful, then it would allow the GTN to thrive a bit more and make money actually useful in the game again. Once you hit 50, credits are pretty much for repairs and that's about it.

5. Performance issues. You know you have a problem with the game when people with i7's and 6990's have FPS issues on Ilum and in warzones with 16 people. Seriously? In this day and age of EVE Online with 2000-man battles, Battlefield 3 with 64 players, and even old Planetside with hundreds of players, this outdated, old style looking game can't handle a paltry amount of players on the screen at the same time? I thought they wanted this game to be "accessible".

As I said before, expecting EVE like performance isn't realistic. Hell even BF3 like performance isn't realistic. While the graphics in SWTOR aren't nearly as good as BF3's, the fact remains that there are more objects being rendered and textured in the game than there probably are in BF3. And there is probably a lot more CPU overhead and network traffic overhead as well. And really SWTOR runs pretty good aside from Ilum. And even then I only have problems when there are massive battles going on. 12 on 12 isn't a problem. But 24+ on 24+ sure as hell is. Now I'm not saying SWTOR shouldn't perform better than it does, because I can agree with that. But comparions to outdated and shitty looking games, or FPS games with less overall happening is just not reasonable.

I agree the game has issues. What MMO doesn't? And even if most of the complaints were addressed, people would still bitch about something. You can't please everyone.

 

[Syntaxx]

Mark my words this games length of up time is doomed. Seriously look this up in a couple years this will be easily Free to play with an extremely low to no player base with very few up servers. Company is never making any money back that it put into it. The 200 million is lost for good. And this is coming from a player who is actually playing this still but just until GW2/D3. Hell to be honest I had 10X more fun in the 1 day i played Tera Online all day compared to the a couple weeks in SWTOR ive played to 25.

 

[mdk30]

I'm thinking the game will probably still be around but might need to make a switch from their current subscription based model to some form of free to play. There's just not enough of a reason to keep a subscription going for more than a single month at a time currently.

 

[GoldenTiger]

I'll address each of your points one by one. I think you are a bit off base or at least unrealistic with some of them.

1. Space combat that's not a consolized piece of shit rail shooter, more in line with what Star Wars Galaxies did nearly 8 YEARS ago perfectly. Or even Tie Fighter did 17 YEARS ago.

I love how everyone expects X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter II out of this. I didn't play Star Wars Galaxies Jump to Lightspeed because the core game was so shitty that an expansion of any kind wasn't appealing to me at all. That being said while I think some people's expectations are a bit out of whack here, I'd like to see it taken off rails with more traditional controls for that type of setup.

I don't see the space combat as even a "feature" right now, it's a marketing bulletpoint. This is a $200 million MMO production, they could easily have added in a meaningful space component.

2. PVP that has some meaning besides a constant boring gear grind. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, used it to clean up mountain dew. A giant snorefest. And also they need a sandbox element to the PVP engame, maybe a planet where factions fight over resources (aka what EVE has, except without the 1200-person fleet battles because we all know this crappy modified Hero engine isn't capable of 16 man fights, let along battles numbering in the hundreds )

I'm not much of an MMO guy as this is one of two I've ever enjoyed enough to play for any length of time. So I am not going to pretend I know jack shit about the Hero engine. That being said, I like how you compare a game like SWTOR to a space combat MMO game with crappy graphics and seem to expect anywhere near the playability with 2,000 people online or whatever. And I know you'll come back and say that you don't expect 2,000 people to be able to play at once, but whatever. I'm going to go out on a limb and say a tiny ship lacking in a whole lot of detail on a space background which is little more than blank / black space with some dots for stars is a bit less demanding than a full on rendered city / area with characters who probably have more polygons than half a dozen EVE ships do. Even with really detailed ships, the back drop is as easy to render as anything could be. Space combat in any game has always been less than graphically demanding. I don't care if we are talking about TIE Fighter, Descent Freespace 2, or the existing space combat in SWTOR. It always runs well.

While I think your performance expectations are somewhat unrealistic, I will say that I agree with you about the PvP gear grind. I'm at valor 56 and just can't see myself grinding all the way to valor 60. I've been playing for weeks to get this far. I've got full Champion gear and anything now just feels like a boring grind with little reward for my efforts. This system needs to be addressed and supposedly big changes are coming in the next major patch. We'll see. And yeah, we need another open world area besides Ilum, or Ilum needs a radical redesign. The open area on Tatooine is always a ghost town, so that one was a bust.

SWTOR's graphics are far, far worse than EVE's, and far far worse than most MMO's. Rift looks a million times better, and performs it too. DAOC handled hundreds and hundreds of people on land in a fantasy setting a decade ago with RVR combat... yet SWTOR with tens of times its budget can't with so much better tech available today?

The PVP is meaningless in SWTOR, and boring: only purpose behind it is to grind for gear, but what do you do when you're geared, or mostly geared? Be bored? Yeah, that's about it... nothing to go capture/fight for/control, war over, etc. Guild Wars 2's WvWvW has it right.

3. Crafting that is useful for level 50's. There is NO reason whatsoever to be a crafter of anything once you reach level 50. Nothing you make has any use for those who reach level 50. Everyone just goes biochem because it's the only useful thing there is right now. I am sorry if crafting doesn't fit into their "story-driven MMO", but no matter what, a good MMO needs crafting to have some kind of community. It keeps a lot of people happy across the board. It definitely can't HURT ffs.

BioWare is well aware of the complaints people have concerning crafting. Overall I think the system that's in place is good, except that most of what you can craft isn't worth a damn at level 50. I'll let you in on a secret that the biochem or bust crowd doesn't seem to be aware of. Every profession actually has something they can do which is useful at level 50. Artifice for example can make saber / blaster crystals and Rakata relics. Synthweaving can make some Rakata armor. I'm sure the other professions are the same way. What is the problem is that many of these really great items that you can make are bind on pickup which means they can't be sold on the GTN. Furthermore the requirements with regard to materials are far too steep as it stands. I've sent my companions out on more than 10 missions and I don't even have half the corusca gems I need to make another relic. That's just bullshit. The biometric crystal alloy requirement for anything good also blows goats. You've got to grind the shit out of hard mode flashpoints and operations to get it.

Yet another terrifyingly broken system in SWTOR is the crafting... it's vaguely functional but has no depth or real use for people past their first few days of being L50.

4. Galaxy Trade Network that isn't the same Hero engine knockoff that was in STO (the GTN is pretty much the same crap that I remember when I first tried STO, except worse). You know, a Galaxy Trade Network that is connected to other trade hubs. Why call it Galaxy when it aint? That's just stupid. And I didn't even touch on the fact that the filtering and searching and everything else looks like it was made by some office temp with a bad attitude. Come on, $150 million for this game? And they can't even have a proper trading mechanic for the game that every other MMO has?

Connecting the GTN to the other servers would bring traffic up and allow for a slightly better economy and a reason to craft items for sale. The problem is that most of the good shit can't be bought or sold and the requirements to make some of the items are ridiculous. So that basically throws most of that out the window. I wish they'd do something to make crafting more appealing, but I'm not sure that connecting the GTN's of all the servers together would actually be anything more than a technical pain in the ass. I think if they could make crafting more useful, then it would allow the GTN to thrive a bit more and make money actually useful in the game again. Once you hit 50, credits are pretty much for repairs and that's about it.

The GTN/AH UI is pathetic... it's sluggish, rigid, has poor filtering, and is basically a barely-functional prototype. Credits just aren't that useful in SWTOR either, and I say this as someone who had over 5 million credits within the first few weeks as an Artificer (no slicing). The whole thing is completely broken.

5. Performance issues. You know you have a problem with the game when people with i7's and 6990's have FPS issues on Ilum and in warzones with 16 people. Seriously? In this day and age of EVE Online with 2000-man battles, Battlefield 3 with 64 players, and even old Planetside with hundreds of players, this outdated, old style looking game can't handle a paltry amount of players on the screen at the same time? I thought they wanted this game to be "accessible".

As I said before, expecting EVE like performance isn't realistic. Hell even BF3 like performance isn't realistic. While the graphics in SWTOR aren't nearly as good as BF3's, the fact remains that there are more objects being rendered and textured in the game than there probably are in BF3. And there is probably a lot more CPU overhead and network traffic overhead as well. And really SWTOR runs pretty good aside from Ilum. And even then I only have problems when there are massive battles going on. 12 on 12 isn't a problem. But 24+ on 24+ sure as hell is. Now I'm not saying SWTOR shouldn't perform better than it does, because I can agree with that. But comparions to outdated and shitty looking games, or FPS games with less overall happening is just not reasonable.

I agree the game has issues. What MMO doesn't? And even if most of the complaints were addressed, people would still bitch about something. You can't please everyone.

The thing is, this game has WAY more issues than most MMO's even, and when most MMO's have issues, that's pathetic when this one had a budget and team exponentially greater than others have had. SWTOR's done... they've missed their shot completely, honestly. People are going to either go back to WOW, go to Guild Wars 2, or go back to Rift at this point. Even if SWTOR "catches up" at all, it's still going to be facing even better versions of those games I just listed, not to mention others such as The Secret World, etc. coming out.

As far as rendering/etc. I sincerely doubt BF3 has less going on in that department, or even CPU overhead, in 64-player conquest maps. As far as network overhead sure, but... then again, SWTOR looks like an NES game compared to BF3 or even Rift (which does have good performance).

I'm always firmly in the "wait for it to be fixed up, MMO's have trouble near launch generally" camp, but this one's so far gone it's sad.

 

[Climber]

I cant begin to tell you how excited i am for GW2 WvWvW system. Ive missed the DAoC model for years now. I cancelled my sw subscription this morning. I had fun with my operative and trooper but really wish i woulda stayed with the sentinel from.day 1 but the story lines are borderline bad, the pvp is stale, and the whole gear grind is really the worse of any mmo in a long time. I want something more meaningful then gear to play an mmo for and i really thought sw and bioware had a winner on their hands.

Hopefully GW2 story and pvp are as goood as they seem.

 

[xSystemFailurex]

It's better because many people got assraped by the gear. They worked hard for gear bags and never got anything besides a lousy 3 centurion commendations. I knew a guy who opened over 20 bags and never got more than 2 items out of it. Out of 25 bags in the old system I got luckier with 7 payouts but sadly 2 of those were duplicates of an item I already had. Thus dropping the useful payout to 2. With that system if your luck was shit you didn't have even centurion gear to show for your efforts. It blew goats. At least with the newone, every 10 bags you get to buy a large piece of gear like your chest piece or leggings. So the payout may be slightly worse for some but you get gear more consistently and you actually have control over what you get. So duplicates are almost impossible to get. My duplicates were all of fucking Champion lightsabers which aren't moddable. So I literally had nothing to show for those.

This way is FAR better.

Well sucks to be me then. I've probably opened 20-25 bags now and have gotten 1 (ONE) gear drop. No dupes, nothing I couldn't use... Just 1 drop. My belt. In my first bag, ever. It's to the point I forget that random drops are even possible. Every bag just =14/7/$

 

[krameriffic]

This is the probably the best mmo since WoW, and it's the star wars franchise. Populations will rise. I think the keyword on this issue is patience for now. I think they did the right thing. Start with relatively few servers and if they are getting bombed then expand, but they expanded too much, there's an element of hit and miss to that. About the second thing, perhaps it's too difficult to manage that approach. It requires that your character data are local on your computer which is a cataclysmic idea.. or that all the servers share everything, which probably is quite impractical and difficult technically in terms of network effectivity. I'm sure all mmo programmers have thought about that. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Long-term populations have never risen significantly after release for any MMO since WoW. They might get a bump in interest from an expansion pack, or even from going F2P, but they will always drop back down even after that.

 

[CryingGod]

Well sucks to be me then. I've probably opened 20-25 bags now and have gotten 1 (ONE) gear drop. No dupes, nothing I couldn't use... Just 1 drop. My belt. In my first bag, ever. It's to the point I forget that random drops are even possible. Every bag just =14/7/$

Be happy you got the one. I'm in the 30s right now and have zilch for gear drops.

 

[Wilo]

I haven't played this game outside of the beta time I got, but why would they make gear drops from bags so rare? In a small way, that reminds me of the old EQ 1 days where getting uncommon drops meant endless camping.

 

[mdk30]

I've read in the past that valor 57-60 is as long as 1-40, or 40-50. Does this still sound about right to anyone currently on the valor grind?

 

[Dan_D]

I've read in the past that valor 57-60 is as long as 1-40, or 40-50. Does this still sound about right to anyone currently on the valor grind?

Yeah it does. Though this is getting fixed with patch 1.1.5. That patch will introduce bonus valor for medals up to 4, and will in general raise valor gains in warzones. Warzones will also count for your daily / weekly Ilum quests as well.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Yeah it does. Though this is getting fixed with patch 1.1.5. That patch will introduce bonus valor for medals up to 4, and will in general raise valor gains in warzones. Warzones will also count for your daily / weekly Ilum quests as well.

Previously you received valor for every medal already and extra commendations.... they're basically "nerfing" it for skilled people's advantage over worse players, and dumbing it down so bad players get more loot. Instead of a bad player getting 4 medals for 50valor/5comms each, he now receives 500valor each and comms. A good player used to catch 9-10 medals at 50valor/5comms each, but now their extra effort is useless past the first 4 medals. They also have dumbed down the loot progression there by drastically ramping up the valor in absolute terms, and making it so Ilum has no purpose for existence for PVP by allowing you to finish your open-world daily/weekly in... INSTANCED WARZONES! I can't help but laugh at that.

 

[Dan_D]

Previously you received valor for every medal already and extra commendations.... they're basically "nerfing" it for skilled people's advantage over worse players, and dumbing it down so bad players get more loot. Instead of a bad player getting 4 medals for 50valor/5comms each, he now receives 500valor each and comms. A good player used to catch 9-10 medals at 50valor/5comms each, but now their extra effort is useless past the first 4 medals. They also have dumbed down the loot progression there by drastically ramping up the valor in absolute terms, and making it so Ilum has no purpose for existence for PVP by allowing you to finish your open-world daily/weekly in... INSTANCED WARZONES! I can't help but laugh at that.

I hear what you are saying and I agree with most of it. I'm tired of Ilum for one thing. Participation is down in the open world areas and it's more of a chore than anything. Previously I hated warzones and much preferred open world PvP and I would continue to do so but people are tired of Ilum and just aren't doing it anymore.

I wouldn't consider myself a bad player, but it's hard to get medals with a Sith Warrior. 5-7 is the most I can typically get. With 4 medals I'll get 500 valor each. Basically instead of grinding for 30+ matches to go up a valor rank I get to go up every 10 matches. I'm fine with that. The grind gets old. I think the valor grind is far too slow as it is. I'm not saying that the fix they've employed is the best way they could have gone, but I'm tired of things as they are.

 

[Langly]

Previously you received valor for every medal already and extra commendations.... they're basically "nerfing" it for skilled people's advantage over worse players, and dumbing it down so bad players get more loot. Instead of a bad player getting 4 medals for 50valor/5comms each, he now receives 500valor each and comms. A good player used to catch 9-10 medals at 50valor/5comms each, but now their extra effort is useless past the first 4 medals. They also have dumbed down the loot progression there by drastically ramping up the valor in absolute terms, and making it so Ilum has no purpose for existence for PVP by allowing you to finish your open-world daily/weekly in... INSTANCED WARZONES! I can't help but laugh at that.

I feel the same way about that. I work hard to get that 8th/9th/10th medal on my scounderal. Usually its either pushing the limit and doing 300k dmg or healing on the side to make sure I get 2 of those medals. They should make medals be worth MORE the more you get. Like make the first 4 worth a small/medium amount. 5-7 be worth a medium amount and anything past 7 be worth a bunch more

 

[Dan_D]

I feel the same way about that. I work hard to get that 8th/9th/10th medal on my scounderal. Usually its either pushing the limit and doing 300k dmg or healing on the side to make sure I get 2 of those medals. They should make medals be worth MORE the more you get. Like make the first 4 worth a small/medium amount. 5-7 be worth a medium amount and anything past 7 be worth a bunch more

Well I think they are also trying to curb the medal farming behavior which often works against the team as a whole. I've seen guys stand off to the side and do the shock frozen water bit for healing medals, etc. I can't stand that crap.

 

[Cantonious]

I feel the same way about that. I work hard to get that 8th/9th/10th medal on my scounderal. Usually its either pushing the limit and doing 300k dmg or healing on the side to make sure I get 2 of those medals. They should make medals be worth MORE the more you get. Like make the first 4 worth a small/medium amount. 5-7 be worth a medium amount and anything past 7 be worth a bunch more

Some classes have an inherent ability to get more medals during warzones. Until that is balanced it needs to be an across the board limit, and I think 4 is fair.

Full disclosure, I can usually hit 7-9 per match, but seeing my friends hitting 4 or 5 because they are straight DPS makes it unfair. Classes need some serious balance/rework.

 

[Dan_D]

Some classes have an inherent ability to get more medals during warzones. Until that is balanced it needs to be an across the board limit, and I think 4 is fair.

Full disclosure, I can usually hit 7-9 per match, but seeing my friends hitting 4 or 5 because they are straight DPS makes it unfair. Classes need some serious balance/rework.

As I've said before, the classes are balanced better than people think they are. But it's balanced for team work not one vs. one. So some classes are weaker in some ways than others. But other classes getting more medals / valor is bullshit. DPS gets screwed in that area. Getting 5-7 medals for me is a pain in the ass to do consistently. Yet I see healers / sorcs with 9+ medals consistently. I also think it's bullshit that I can take nearly every objective in Voidstar or score the most goals in Huttball and I don't get jack shit for my extra effort.

 

[mdk30]

Their "solutions" just continue to prove to me that they really don't know wtf they're doing when it comes to PvP. I know, these are all temporary (because everything about an MMO is temporary), but still, your "fix" is to only allow 4 medals to count for everyone? I'll just be hoping to get into a match that's nearly over every single time now because getting 4 medals with certain classes can literally be done in 1 minute of playtime. What's my motivation to keep trying after that? I don't see why they couldn't still at least let medals beyond 4 count the same as they already do.

At the same time, I'll gladly take these changes. Not having to go to Ilum at ALL to get those daily/weekly quests is great. Hilarious, but great. That place is pathetic. Lowering the valor grind by any amount is more than welcome as well and will hopefully mean that my friends can get burnt out even faster so we can all un-sub and move on to something else.

 

[Dan_D]

I think the best solution would be to alter how medals are earned in the first place. Something more level across the board for all classes and players. And damn it, objectives and goals should count. Why the hell that wasn't in there from day one is totally beyond my understanding. I do still believe that valor progression is way too slow. It seems that many aspects of the game's design is to keep people playing as long as possible after level 50. Probably to keep subscriptions high. But rather than provide more content and more stuff to do, they milk what they have by making progression through the content they have as slow as possible.

 

[timtheenchantor]

Objectives and goals should count. However, as a healer - I am the only person healing. I know why - you don't get nearly as much medals as you would from killing blows and other damage/offensive related behavior.