What can SE learn from Bioware's failing Star Wars MMO?

[Velhart]

You could only have 1 LS in XI, so all LSes were exclusive.

You could have as many LS's as your inventory could hold.

[Katsumi_Tsukino]

I have to agree with those that are saying the grind is part of the fun. I felt the same about FFXI when i was playing meeting people discovering new abilities in a party setting and learning how to work them was a huge part of the fun on top of that you got to meet new people make friends and actually experience and explore the world when you had to move to a new spot to exp off of. people say COP killed the grinding experience but even post Aht Urgan the games grind was fun. what really killed the game and how you can truely say that you know exp pts actually teach people how to raid and work in a group setting is simply Abyssea.

Abyssea destoryed the skill level of the games players. anyone could get a job up to level cap and didnt matter what gear was used, what abilities were used. everyone got a free ticket to level cap with any job they wanted, hell half the people would claim they were going on a job that was well geared and then swap out and leach exp from everyone else. the game also got easy mode with the anima and the uber powerful everything. honestly IMO thats what really ruined FFXI.

FFXIV to survive will need to be able to build a community of players that actually know eachother. that actually need to quest with eachother and level up together. they shouldnt make it so that you cant do other things. sometimes everyone will just want to log on and not have to deal with people. but the majority of the game should be done with other people. and the game should have time sinks built in so gear doesnt drop instantly and everyone gets geared up within a few months or levels from one to 50 within a few months. my highest class maybe pretty low at this point but I can already see if I was super hardcore about playing the game logging in every night and playing for 4-5 hrs where I could have all my DoW/DoM capped in a matter of a few months.

I am sure that SE will strike a good balance and I hope that they will lean towards what seems to be the larger group on the forums people that dont want instant gratification and super casual games. the people that want to be able to do the content and have a reason to play the game for years to come.

[Airget]

Grinding "use" to be part of the charm but now we live in a world of farmville and all those instant gratification games that if people aren't being rewarded right off the bat they'll complain about it. Just look at the complaints towards the relic weapons perhaps the most challenging thing yet not as challenging as obtaining the relic/mythic from XI.

Browser based games and micro-transactions have tainted a good amount of gamers that use to play for fun and enjoy the community of it all and in an MMO a community is everything, without that you only have a shell of a game.

In something like swtor a community wasn't needed til end-game and even then there wasn't enough content to do with said group. Sure they had flashpoints which you could do to lv up and play with 3 others but overall said content wasn't needed to "experience" the game when you could just as easily level solo through the storyline and sidequest which were offered.

While the same could be said for XIV compared to swtor in it's current state XIV's content is somewhat more varied.
-A decent variety of NM(granted not the most challenging but respawns aren't ridiculous)
-dungeons (time based which force you to progress through them fast in order to complete them)
-Primal Fights (Boss instance without the dungeons)
-AF quest (Content which requires help from other to complete at later stages)
-GC quest (content which requires help from other to complete)
-Caravans (content which requires at least 7 others to get a decent payout)
-Relic weapons (content which requires a wide range of skill and luck to obtain as well as a good community)

That's all I can think of atm. When you compare it to SWTOR they have
Flashpoint(4 person event which is repeatable and can be done at own leisure with no penalty for taking your time. So someone with a lot of time on their hands can pretty much clean out the flashpoint before leaving, and since one person can enter a flashpoint by themselves they can just as easily use said instance to farm items for credit)
Story mode(solo adventure)
Side quest(large variety which can be done solo with only a handful that recommend a group rangin from 2-4)
Operations (instance event which can have from 8-16 in it, works in the same way as flashpoints.)
PVP (events usually pitting again on an 8v8 setup however horribly imbalanced)

But ya, SWTOR issue falls from imbalance and lack of a wide variety of large grouped events because of said imbalance. If they were able to balance classes properly as well as offer a wider variety of content for players to do then perhaps it would have faired better.

[Elexia]

If anybody thinks beating a crab 1 million times trains you for primal battles, and other endgame content then they are silly. Doing actual endgame content is the best an only way to get good at it.

Because doing levequests and sitting around getting powerleveled trained you for Primal battles and AV, right?

[Duelle]

You certainly didn't play SWTOR then, the best part is the leveling and people left mostly because of the unbalanced endgame once Level 50 is reached. The game is heavily story driven and your journey from 1 to 50 is painless, as you don't really feel the grind (like you do on XIV, especially past level 30 where most of people are doing Raptor > Natalan grind fest).

Thats because TOR has a story with which to buffer the time it takes to level a character. Alderaan => Hoth is pretty involved, and you get the exp as you go, which is never a bad thing. You don't really feel the grind because you're probably wanting to see how the story ends.

Typical example that comes in mind are the low drop rate. If XIV had SWTOR like drop rate, we wouldn't even be here anymore to talk, because we would all have left.

You can have a 100% drop rate, but it requires giving bosses loot pools and ensuring you have plenty of content to spread it about. I'm not sure whether you're attempting to justify the ridiculous drop rates so far, though I'm of the mind they're there because the game lacks content and thus needs this to elongate its relevancy.

[Lanceton]

To me, the same factor which prevented me from buying SW:TOR after trying out its beta, made me quit wow and barely kept me with FF14, is the graphic.

[TakKuroda]

*wavies* hello. I enjoy a bit of the 'grinding' xp, as it's a great way to chat with people in XP parties and perfect some of the finer aspects of your job. Although I am thinking mostly of FFXI pre-COP era XP.

It's true. Party grinding helps you learn your job in a party for end game. Party grinding taught me the best way to heal and keep hate down. When playing TOR, especially in PVP it was always just a mad house. There was no party structure or team work. Everyone was simply playing by themselves on a team.

[Viritess]

Thats because TOR has a story with which to buffer the time it takes to level a character. Alderaan => Hoth is pretty involved, and you get the exp as you go, which is never a bad thing. You don't really feel the grind because you're probably wanting to see how the story ends.

You can have a 100% drop rate, but it requires giving bosses loot pools and ensuring you have plenty of content to spread it about. I'm not sure whether you're attempting to justify the ridiculous drop rates so far, though I'm of the mind they're there because the game lacks content and thus needs this to elongate its relevancy.

I like your points here. Grind only feels like a grind when theres nothing to distract you from it. On that point, SW:Tor did well. The story was good enough to move you through it and level you without an obviously repetitive action. However it failed to deliver you any real reasons to group up either.

Flashpoints we're so passable that often you found very few to do them with. And the Grouping tool was lackluster and in some ways would force you to sit in a station to even find the group. Theres no community if not ones around to do things with. But Grouping tools and the community breaking "Discussion" can be saved for another thread.

The second point being Loot pools as they stand in so many games now are filled by Top end items then strait to crap. Look at primals. Theres the weapons you want, then DM that saps your soul. One could easily ease such situations with a higher drop rate, but a better array of mid grade items. Maybe the same as something else but with a different skin. Or +5 and +4 of a similar item, but the stats reversed.

If a loot "pool" is more then a shot glass it really does help keep the highs and lows people feel when they win more baseline.

[XxOstiaxX]

The game no longer has 1 million plus subscribers, otherwise they're just wasting money on subscriptions they're just sitting on. It had a strong start, strongest in a long time, but now every server seems to be trailing at light population and the game is hurting. The game is plagued with hundreds of issues never addressed, a lack of overall content to keep people there after the story, issues surrounding EA leading to some very bad press, and stupid decisions from EA in general.

1.7 a month after release(After free trial was over) and they have lost 400k...... I know you can count

[Duelle]

The second point being Loot pools as they stand in so many games now are filled by Top end items then strait to crap. Look at primals. Theres the weapons you want, then DM that saps your soul. One could easily ease such situations with a higher drop rate, but a better array of mid grade items. Maybe the same as something else but with a different skin. Or +5 and +4 of a similar item, but the stats reversed.

If a loot "pool" is more then a shot glass it really does help keep the highs and lows people feel when they win more baseline.

Well, the way I would design Garuda's lootpool for example, would be as follows (this is assuming Garuda is on a 7-day lockout timer like raid bosses in WoW are, and as such you need 10 totems to trade for a weapon):

15% chance of getting a weapon
80-95% chance of getting one from the following list of items:

Vembraces of the Gales (+Shield Block rating, +STR, +VIT, +DEX)
Cuisses of the Vortex (+Attack, +STR, +Parry rating, +Accuracy)
Wind Rider's Belt (+Accuracy, +AGI, +INT)
Emerald Feathered Boots (+INT, +M.Acc, Grants Refresh Effect)

100% chance of getting 4-7 pieces of Dark Matter
100% chance of getting one totem

This way at least when not getting a weapon your group still gets something for their troubles and still progresses in a matter of speaking.