swtor boredom

Dermighty · 10-01-2012 3:09pm #1

Level 39 and bored!

Kiith · 10-01-2012 3:44pm

Still enjoying it myself, but i've barely gotten to play in the last week. Just not much time, and i've not been that interested in coming home to play anything lately.

After seeing a lot of the complaints over the last few days/weeks, it does make me wonder though...what does a new MMO have to do to keep people interested? Some of the complaints i've seen seem justified, and i can understand annoyance/frustration at them, but it seems like a new game has to be perfect as soon as it's launched, or it gets slated.

It can't be totally different to Warcraft, as that seems like the model that people want and obviously has the backing of millions of people? It can't be the same as Warcraft, its had 7 years to improve on it's design and does it pretty damn well. Other than niche titles, it just doesn't seem like anything can really get any momentum. If GW2 doesn't make a dent in the market next year, i give up. May as well just wait for the next Blizzard MMO, since it will pull in millions of people regardless of what it is.

If someone like Bioware, with the Star Wars IP, and the hundreds of millions of dollars from EA, can't get it right, than who the hell can?

Stev_o · 10-01-2012 3:58pm

Kiith wrote: »

Still enjoying it myself, but i've barely gotten to play in the last week. Just not much time, and i've not been that interested in coming home to play anything lately.

After seeing a lot of the complaints over the last few days/weeks, it does make me wonder though...what does a new MMO have to do to keep people interested? Some of the complaints i've seen seem justified, and i can understand annoyance/frustration at them, but it seems like a new game has to be perfect as soon as it's launched, or it gets slated.

It can't be totally different to Warcraft, as that seems like the model that people want and obviously has the backing of millions of people? It can't be the same as Warcraft, its had 7 years to improve on it's design and does it pretty damn well. Other than niche titles, it just doesn't seem like anything can really get any momentum. If GW2 doesn't make a dent in the market next year, i give up. May as well just wait for the next Blizzard MMO, since it will pull in millions of people regardless of what it is.

If someone like Bioware, with the Star Wars IP, and the hundreds of millions of dollars from EA, can't get it right, than who the hell can?

See the problem is that the old EQ/WoW system of MMO's has grown quite tiresome and over done at this stage. WoW has pretty much done everything possible within it's reaches. Personally I find the worst aspect of these sort of MMO's is that nothing drastically changes between level 1-level cap. It's the same system of events repeated ad nauseum.

Mean when you think back on TOR what will be the defining feature that kept you hooked, that one thing sentence that defined the best feature of the game. Most people will say the story (which can be very hit or miss depending on preference and class, I very much enjoyed my story up until level 20ish where it became a parody on a MMO quest

go collect artefacts from planets

).

Most MMO's do struggle with the above, those awesome stories that you can tell your friends about and they'd go nice!

GW2 should be a decent enough game but I fear people keep forgetting that it made its name on PVP not PVE. If you feel skill rotation gets boring fast in other MMO's then you haven't met anything yet.

The worst thing I felt about TOR was how uninspiring it was, it was a painting by numbers game, it didn't take risks and it never felt like it was pushing the boundaries.

TheDoc · 10-01-2012 3:58pm

Its a weird one to say.

I think the issue is so many players have for so long being used to playing WoW, simple as.

You will find most of the grumblings come from two sets of people

1) Experienced WoW players who have grievances with what they feel are the "basics"
2) New MMO players who simply might not enjoy/grasp the effort involved.

I'm in option 1, and on further review its more likely I've just being spoiled with Wow. Years of developement and fine tuning, a pro active developer and a horde of community driven mods and addons.

I am off for five days next week and will be tearing into SWTOR big time, and that will really tell me all I need to know.

I could easily spend 5 days in front of a PC playing WoW, if I can't do it with Swtor then I know its just not for me...

Then we can make a new thread and discuss my severe issues with life

I have to say put a few more hours into it lately and while there is still over arching nuisances, they are just nuisances. I really truely believe they can and will be fixed shortly.

For example, the brackets in PVP was so stupid from the get go. why level 50's would be bunched in with everyone else was beyond me, but they have changed it.

So fingers crossed anyway.

I'm starting to strike a nice balance of playtime at the moment. Usually putting an hour or two a night to gain a level seems to be going grand.

jeawan · 10-01-2012 3:59pm

I am still enjoying it too i am level 42 commando also have a level 30 guardian and a few others , really enjoy how the quest work in the game , love the crafting all though they need to fix it a bit for endgame lvl 50 stuff , and really enjoy the pvp.

@ Doc could you sit and play wow solidly now ? i found after say 4 month of cata the game had really lost interest to me it is all just rehashed after playing it for 6+ years i honestly would just stop playing MMO's if there was nothing else there to play . SWTOR feels very much like Mass Effect online to me with a starwars skin but it has so much potental they could add but will they no on knows i hope they do.

TheDoc · 10-01-2012 4:19pm

jeawan wrote: »

I am still enjoying it too i am level 42 commando also have a level 30 guardian and a few others , really enjoy how the quest work in the game , love the crafting all though they need to fix it a bit for endgame lvl 50 stuff , and really enjoy the pvp.

@ Doc could you sit and play wow solidly now ? i found after say 4 month of cata the game had really lost interest to me it is all just rehashed after playing it for 6+ years i honestly would just stop playing MMO's if there was nothing else there to play . SWTOR feels very much like Mass Effect online to me with a starwars skin but it has so much potental they could add but will they no on knows i hope they do.

Could easily spend all day on WoW.

Few weekends back had the weekend to myself as she was away, and got my Paladin from absolute rags to fully geared from VP and heroics and ready to go into LFR, that was all done Saturday, then into LFR sunday.

At the moment I'm levelling a shaman I'm really itnerested in. There is a temptation to put the five days into the shaman and getting him 85 and geared to go LFR>

I'm actually contemplating not touching swtor till next week, and getting the shaman to 85, then spend a day gearing her up to LFR entry

Will see how we go

Kirby · 10-01-2012 4:43pm

It's very possible to spend a week playing WoW. Easy.

I remember when I was at the stage that I was raiding every day. It was constant as in the morning you grind for potion mats, do some dailies and pvp and then spend the evening raiding.

It's very easy to get sucked in and before you know it the week is gone

.

Isn't leveling much quicker now with the "Invite a friend" system? I can see a person getting a shammy to 85 in a week of solid play.

Nody · 10-01-2012 4:57pm

Stev_o wrote: »

See the problem is that the old EQ/WoW system of MMO's has grown quite tiresome and over done at this stage. WoW has pretty much done everything possible within it's reaches. Personally I find the worst aspect of these sort of MMO's is that nothing drastically changes between level 1-level cap. It's the same system of events repeated ad nauseum.

This is the problem; you can't out do WoW on standard run of the mill MMO style of game; sorry but you're up against something which will simply not happened due to the time, content and polish put on it. The fact it has Blizzard stamped on it does not hurt either but as I said in the other thread WoW (and most Blizzard games along with Valve games) are exceptions to the rule for sale numbers etc.

This means any MMO needs to be different enough from WoW to bring in something new while not being to different that it can't attract people. This can be done in many ways such as Eve's total sandbox style, making it revolve around PvP (World of Tanks, GW2, Tribes, Planetside etc.) or in some other direction (grind style, unique graphic style such as many Asian once etc.) but because of this they are also unlikely to pull in WoW numbers.

Add in WoW being many people's first MMO (and we all know how we got pulled in to the first MMO) and no matter the complaints is a well made, casual MMO at that it is always going to be the elephant in the room when comparisons come up.

WoW is only going to be replaced by WoW 2, and seeing how Everquest are still up and running (and getting new expansions) it is unlikely to go away for many years to come.

Stev_o · 10-01-2012 5:08pm

Nody wrote: »

This is the problem; you can't out do WoW on standard run of the mill MMO style of game; sorry but you're up against something which will simply not happened due to the time, content and polish put on it. The fact it has Blizzard stamped on it does not hurt either but as I said in the other thread WoW (and most Blizzard games along with Valve games) are exceptions to the rule for sale numbers etc.

This means any MMO needs to be different enough from WoW to bring in something new while not being to different that it can't attract people. This can be done in many ways such as Eve's total sandbox style, making it revolve around PvP (World of Tanks, GW2, Tribes, Planetside etc.) or in some other direction (grind style, unique graphic style such as many Asian once etc.) but because of this they are also unlikely to pull in WoW numbers.

Add in WoW being many people's first MMO (and we all know how we got pulled in to the first MMO) and no matter the complaints is a well made, casual MMO at that it is always going to be the elephant in the room when comparisons come up.

WoW is only going to be replaced by WoW 2, and seeing how Everquest are still up and running (and getting new expansions) it is unlikely to go away for many years to come.

The funny thing is if you explained this to any sort of business person they'd be completely shocked that companies have spent hundreds of millions in financing such games when one a logically scale they cant compete.

It's like opening up a clone of McDonalds as it was in 2000 and expecting to pull people away. People are going to be like "Where's my euro saver meal?" etc. No company can deliver 7/8 years plus on going content in a 2/3 development cycle, it's impossible. To quote South Park "Simpsons did it".

Whether you like it or not WoW defines the MMO genre, to the point where it totally eclipses it. Everything is compared against it and yet every year we see dev teams go and copy it like for like and hope that they can beat it. It's just madness. So what people try to do now is tie in very big franchises to these MMO's and say "Hey you like X* (Star Wars/War Hammer/Star Trek take your pic) come play this game it's what we are all about".

Very few are pushing the boundary in the MMO scene (and I hardly blame them) but again it's probably systamatic of the gaming scene as a whole, go on to Steam and look at the top played games and notice how there are the golden group that barely see their numbers drop during other big releases and seem to suck back the numbers after such releases (Just look at RO2, BF3).

Kirby · 10-01-2012 5:09pm

The thing that I think will seperate this MMO from WoW is scope.

Expansions with WoW brought about a certain thing. New areas to explore , new raid content and maybe a new class. This is all good but its just more of the same stuff that people have seen before. A Wow raid from vanilla operates the same way as a raid now. Less people, but its the same thing.

They may not do it, but I see great scope in expansions with TOR. Obviously you have new gear and new instances. "Run of the mill" stuff as you called it. Thats a given. But they can add stuff that is less run of the mill.

They can add new storylines for all the classes. Not just new planets but 8 different class story lines to play through. Maybe try Co-op stories that involve two specific classes for example. They can add a more advanced space flight style like they did with Galaxies.

Stuff like that. They may not do it and may wuss out and just go cookie cutter. But the possibilites are there. I just hope that they don't think they are "done" now...and can just sit on the subscription fee's and try to get fat off it. The game needs constant work and updating and it will die if they don't do it.

Stev_o · 10-01-2012 5:16pm

I have my doubts, I can't see them doing anything like that that isn't an expansion. Realistically it will take them twice as long and cost 2 to 3 times as much money to create that sort of content then it would a standard MMO and considering that all MMO's seem to follow the structure of losing subs as the months go by I can't see them being able to fund those sort of projects unless they go down an expansion level.

What they'll do is what they are currently doing, more raids, more ship missions. I very much doubt on their ability to produce voiced content like what you see in the main quest in a short period of time.

I also think their infrastructure within their game boxes them from doing anything that hasn't been done before or anything that really will grab everyone's attention.

EDIT:

Also bare in mind Kirby that WoW threw scope out the window a long time ago, the whole Warcraft theme is fairly dead and this stage and it's more a free for all in whatever their designers could do.

oxo_ · 10-01-2012 5:20pm

Nody wrote: »

making it revolve around PvP (World of Tanks, GW2, Tribes, Planetside etc.)

*Cough* *splutter* PlanetSide existed before Wow !!!

Our whole Vanu PS outfit joined Wow together when it came out. Fun times while it lasted.

nesf · 10-01-2012 5:36pm

Stev_o wrote: »

Very few are pushing the boundary in the MMO scene (and I hardly blame them) but again it's probably systamatic of the gaming scene as a whole, go on to Steam and look at the top played games and notice how there are the golden group that barely see their numbers drop during other big releases and seem to suck back the numbers after such releases (Just look at RO2, BF3).

Well the big problem is that MMOs are very close to a perfect positive reinforcement model a la what we do with rats pushing levels to get sugar water*. That's why they're so addictive and successful. Moving too far away, too fast from this is going to spell disaster for a game unless it gets stupidly lucky and game developers are not typically willing to spend very large sums of money on big risks.

*Their problem is that different groups of players progress through content at different paces and it's impossible to keep them all happy.

Dcully · 10-01-2012 6:06pm

Understandable that wow keeps cropping up but i havent given on swtor just yet.
Same can be said for Rift, i thoroughly enjoyed rift all the way to lvl 50 and beyond,i only quit because the endgame wasnt there.
9 -10 months on im hearing there is plenty of endgame for pve atleast.
Fingers crossed bioware get cracking as fast as Trion have with Rift and get content out there.
If they addressed the low population feel caused by instancing and added endgame content all the while addressing more minor issues id be happy.
I reckon the game needs 2-3 months, then we will know just what bioware is made of.
Meanwhile ill probably play on and off until the 19th when my free 30 days is up,im very keen to give rift a months sub to see whats what,that should nest nicely into the time i hope bioware will be hard at work

Nody · 10-01-2012 6:13pm

oxo_ wrote: »

*Cough* *splutter* PlanetSide existed before Wow !!!

Our whole Vanu PS outfit joined Wow together when it came out. Fun times while it lasted.

As did Eve, the point was rather to show bigger known MMOs that have something different from WoW; not only MMOs that came out after WoW

degrassinoel · 10-01-2012 11:41pm

I've cancelled my subscription.

I have gotten two characters to max level, a bounty hunter and a consular.
Been reading through some of the posts here and there on these forums and i have to reluctantly agree to this.
It is an excellent single player game. It is an average mmo.

That said.. i wont be going back to wow for the time being, i just cant handle the idea of watching my toons being afk in org or spamming fishing or whatever else i wasnt doing before i quit.

If i was to resub to swtor, i would like to see some type of freeflight space combat rather than the monotonous on-rails system. Dont misunderstand me, they are great missions the first few times. but repetition is mindnumbing.
Minor gripe there.

A LFG system ala WoW - (i know.. if you've used it, you'll probably hate it as much as i did in wow) would be a good start, or at least a decent form of matchmaking rather than manually asking in /1 or spamming whispers in /who. ie: the ability to queue or make yourself available to a particular instance while on any world, not just the republic/empire fleet.
This majorly bugged me, though i may just be spoiled by wow.

Speaking of bugs.. swtor isnt bugfree by any means. We all know that.
Some of the more annoying ones as a caster are the knockdown one, where you get back up and cannot cast anything because the client/server thinks you are layed out on your back or moving, requires a relog.
Then the companion heals, sometimes they dont heal, or sometimes they do and other times they heal you and you turn green until you relog or hit a load screen. /reload or ctrl u x2 doesnt work.

I had no intention of playing endgame pve or pvp throughout my time playing swtor. So levelling toons was pretty much it. Dont get me wrong if i didnt like the game at all, i wouldnt have played it from december 18th til now. The difference between worlds and various different quests and class quests were great. The dialogue options for light and dark were sometimes brilliant and sometimes hilarious, dark particularly.
I would resub in the future, if some changes were made to suit my fussiness. But as far as levelling characters goes, i could only manage 2 to max level on either faction.

The game was worth the cash and it kept me entertained for quite a while, and should keep any casual gamer occupied for months at least. But i've had a good run

Just need Diablo 3 to release now i'll be happy for another month xD

Venom · 11-01-2012 3:17am

I can see myself subbing for the first month at least but anything after that depends on Bioware and what they add to the game and how fast. SWTOR had a good launch as MMO's go but apart from the voice work, it adds nothing else new to the genre and leaves out alot of what people now take for granted in modern MMO games.

Even the class questlines which seem interesting enough for the most part (trooper sucks) only make up 4-6 missions per planet so u have to replay the exact same missions each alt of the same faction you make which gets old very fast.

TheDoc · 11-01-2012 7:43am

Kirby wrote: »

Isn't leveling much quicker now with the "Invite a friend" system? I can see a person getting a shammy to 85 in a week of solid play.

If I used RAF I could have got up shockingly fast.

I'm 75 currently on my shaman with 1 1/2 days played. I'd be aiming for atleast 80 by Friday and to make the run to 85 by the weekend.

Giving myself a good few days next week to play swtor which will probably be the deal breaker.

Kiith · 11-01-2012 9:58am

Played for a few hours last night, and had a great time. Really enjoying the Gunslinger, and enjoying the class quests. Nar Shaddaa is interesting enough, and ran a few flashpoints. They aren't as good as Esseles, but they are enjoyable nonetheless.

I for one will definitely be subbing after the first month.

11-01-2012 11:58am

I cancelled my sub. If the game improves i will get it back. It makes a good RPG and i wouldnt mind playing it every now and again for that. But no RPG is worth 50 + a monthly sub .

Dcully · 11-01-2012 12:37pm

Ive cancelled also.
I logged in lastnight with the intention of putting 90 mins into it.
Spent 45 mins as a healer trying to find a group for a lvl 41 flashpoint [pretty much every flashpoint past lvl 20 is terrible]
Got fed up with that so decided to do some questing but the place was dead @ 9pm :eek:
A total of 62 people in instance 1 of the zone/planet.
Absolutely no chat at all,tried to get a group going for the 4 man heroic quests, no takers again.
Spent 25 mins doing solo quests and got fed up of the same old mob layout, a group of 3 then a group of 3 and so on,seriously it was mind numbing.
The zones are a toal snoozefest after lvl 25-30,not just the lack of people but the layout is absolutely terrible.
The more i play the more it seems bioware spent all this time and money on cutscenes.
In its current form and to me personally this is not an game worth paying a sub for,infact it doesnt even feel anything like an mmo since i got past lvl 25.

Dustaz · 11-01-2012 4:23pm

I only got level 50 there a day or two ago due to work and christmas/new year intercedeing and enjoyed the game up untill that, even if its very single playerish.

Luckily i play with a few friends so that i can do heroic fps but if you were solo, there is literally NOTHING to do bar finish your class quest and pvp. I hate pvp so id cancel instantly. As it is, ill give it a raid or two and see, but i dont like my chances of paying for a second month.

nesf · 11-01-2012 9:20pm

Dustaz wrote: »

if you were solo, there is literally NOTHING to do bar finish your class quest and pvp.

Isn't that generally the case though? I know when my guild were all asleep and I'd insomnia or whatever all I had to do was either grinding out mats, levelling alts or PvP in WoW.

nesf · 11-01-2012 9:21pm

Oh, one personal gripe that I find very surprising that I don't see mentioned often enough is how crap the Auction House set up is. For a 2011 game it's absurdly bad.

Stev_o · 11-01-2012 9:23pm

nesf wrote: »

Oh, one personal gripe that I find very surprising that I don't see mentioned often enough is how crap the Auction House set up is. For a 2011 game it's absurdly bad.

Yeah it's awful feels like it was designed by interns getting to grips with working at a new work place then a professional thought out GUI and implementation. Think the UI suffers from not being thought out at all which is quite surprising given how it's probably the most modded thing most MMO's.

nesf · 11-01-2012 9:37pm

Stev_o wrote: »

Yeah it's awful feels like it was designed by interns getting to grips with working at a new work place then a professional thought out GUI and implementation. Think the UI suffers from not being thought out at all which is quite surprising given how it's probably the most modded thing most MMO's.

Yeah one wonders what they were thinkings with a large population used to Auctioneer coming over.

Venom · 11-01-2012 10:09pm

Stev_o wrote: »

Yeah it's awful feels like it was designed by interns getting to grips with working at a new work place then a professional thought out GUI and implementation. Think the UI suffers from not being thought out at all which is quite surprising given how it's probably the most modded thing most MMO's.

Sadly its not just the UI (tho in this day and age unforgivable) that shows some really bad design ideas made by people who don't seem to play game.

1. The UI is a joke
2. AH is so basic you would swear TOR is the first to use one
3. The insane amount of instances when you travel between planets..

travel to spaceport, run though huge ass spaceport to lift, lift to hangar, run through huge ass hanger to shuttle to orbital dock, run though orbital dock to ship, run through ship, use galaxy map, run through ship to orbital dock, run through dock to shuttle to planet, lift to spaceport

WTF were the developers thinking!

4. Crafting is pretty useless at max level due to ease of getting better items from daily missions
5. PvP is laggy as hell
6. PvP gear is miles better than PvE gear
5. Flashpoints and Operations are buggy as hell and Hard Mode ones even worse.
6. graphics are pretty poor due to missing high res textures which now seem to not be due to a bug but just not coming due to how piss poor the engine tech is
7. Combat is pretty bland with the same setting of 3-6 normal mobs, elite and a few normal mobs or a champion level mob.

Sadly these are all issue that hit you in the face every time you log in

Dustaz · 11-01-2012 11:51pm

nesf wrote: »

Oh, one personal gripe that I find very surprising that I don't see mentioned often enough is how crap the Auction House set up is. For a 2011 game it's absurdly bad.

Oh yeh, couldnt agree more. its HORRRIBLE, but then again, all of the UI is the worst thing ive ever seen in a game.

Im in the middle of my guilds first raid at the moment and

OH

MY

GOD

Have these people EVER raided before? I can live without all the 'ease of life' mods i got used to like ready checks and boss mods etc etc. But christ, THEY DONT HAVE A WORKING LOOT SYSTEM.

When you kill a boss, the game automatically assigns loot to those that can use it. It does hidden rolls if theres more than one person availble to the item. There is NO working master looter, NO working FFA loot. Even if there was, there is no /random command in the game so you cant roll for stuff between yourselves.

We've killed 3 bosses so far and every time, the game assigned loot to someone with an epic in that slot already, while there was at least 2 others with blues in that slot.

Oh, and we've been told flat out that there is no item refunds/swaps.

Oh, and if your a tank, your going to have fun with no target of target frame.

Oh, remember that companion that you sent out on the 1 hour mission 59 minutes ago? Have fun with the GIANT window that pops up over your unit frames just as the tank is taking lots of damage.

I seriously dont think these guys have ever been in a raid before.

Dustaz · 12-01-2012 12:04am

In the interests of fairness i should say, the encounters are quite fun , if unexpecatadly easy on normal mode.

I really like that tier 1 instances, especially normal mode ones, are quite easy to allow as many as possible to try raiding, but god the amount of bugs is incredible

nesf · 12-01-2012 9:19am

Dustaz wrote: »

Oh, remember that companion that you sent out on the 1 hour mission 59 minutes ago? Have fun with the GIANT window that pops up over your unit frames just as the tank is taking lots of damage.

That had been fixed for me while I was in combat since the last mini-patch. This was more than a few days ago for you?

TheDoc · 12-01-2012 9:34am

nesf wrote: »

That had been fixed for me while I was in combat since the last mini-patch. This was more than a few days ago for you?

The lads did Eternity Vault last night

I'm kinda humming at haughing at this stage wether to even waste my subscription time cards on this game, to sell them, or hold them until things get better.

And I'm not even at level 50 yet, such a massive dissapointment : /

swtor boredom

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