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

[MStowastiqVahlshdeh]

I was bored with SWTOR beta and I participated purely because it was beta, knowing it was not my genre to buy a game in but I enjoy the beta testing experience in general. Something about the game just did not set with me and it failed to draw me in on any level.

What SE could learn? don't make a boring game and they already avoided that so I am not sure what else but it seems they fully look into other mmorpg titles to see what they can learn from them.

[Delsus]

All SE needs to do is learn from their 1.xx problems and keep decent re-playable content and FFXIV will succeed especially if they add long term goals for the people that want it.

All they don't want to do is make casuals is super gimp, so they can do content, hardcores just get the absolute best, casuals would still be acceptable.

[Madrox]

i still think they went too far showing enemy levels and passive/aggresiveness

[Duelle]

So what does SW:TOR's lackluster success and seemingly dismal future say about what actually is the future of the genre and what should SE take away from this as it moves forward with 2.0?

Ignoring your badly-placed diatribe (TOR's downfall won't be philosopher's stone to returning the MMO genre to the days of no-life-EQ-gaming, despite how you wish it were), the following are the problems of TOR:

1) Crappy engine: one of the things that really cause trouble is how garbage the Hero engine is (not as bad as crystal tools, but its down there). Worst of all is that Bioware built the game on an outdated version of the Hero engine and supposedly declined to receiving updates from the guys who made it.

2) Lacking class balance: In retrospect, all the classes were designed seemingly with a single-player game in mind, and it shows when the jedi consular rose to being the "only" viable healer. Not to account the amount of brokeness in PvP.

3) Lack of endgame content: Much like FFXIV(!), TOR doesn't have much in the way of high level content. Hence why the operations were released in a state some consider premature, flashpoints were not properly tuned and so on.

4) Imbalance of population: In one of the few times aesthetics harm rather than help, Sith outnumbered Republic players considerably since launch because people liked the Sith. That's REALLY bad in a game with a PvP element.

Casual-friendly had nothing to do with TOR's issues. Bioware just made a crapton of bad design decisions and it bit them in the ass.

What I find funny about the OP is that even the WoW crowd looks at TOR and points out these technical issues and bad decisions over saying "0mg w0w clon fa1lz bring bak n0-lifez tr0ll0ll". The Hero engine is a technical issue. The decision of launching the game with barely any PvE content was a bad decisions. Sith Inquisitors and Jedi Consulars making the hop to live OPd like they were in beta was a bad decision. Skimming on a lot of the stuff they wanted to add was a bad decision. Launching without the basic MMO tools was a bad decision.

...in a way, TOR is pretty much FFXIV but without the company behind it willing to pump money into fixing the game. Knowing EA, they'll dump the game soon enough. Not that I didn't see any of it coming, because when I saw that people like the guy behind WAR's Bright Wizard fiasco was on the TOR team, I sensed a great disturbance in the Force. :O

[Sylfa]

Challenge isn't a remenant of the past. Challenge due to game design defects is. Everquest and FFXI weren't successful because of punishing death penalties or hours of walking. ...

...MMOs fail because they get half-assed in a genre where there are already too many to choose from...

I agree with these sentiments completely


As a person who did hardcore endgame in both FFXI and World of Warcraft, having cleared the endgame hard-mode raids in SWTOR once, and having casually played Rift, Age of Conan, and WAR, I feel like I have a unique ability to contribute on this topic.

Casuals (by far the lion's share of all MMO players) keep playing because of immersion, discovery, plot and flashy explosions. Casual players dislike losing, and are more prone (than non-casual players) to give up and go somewhere else when things are too buggy, or get too challenging.

non-casuals keep playing for titles, challenging bosses that the casuals will never kill, and oh yeah - gear. Gear that promotes emergent content. The gear you get is meaningless if it doesn't bring about new ways to play the game. Gear needs to enable you to do things once thought impossible, or make previously unplayable specs viable for anyone to care about it.


SWTOR's colossal mistake is they aimed at the casual gamer while giving them none of the high-quality window-dressing they wanted, while utterly neglecting the non-casual player:



(my) SWTOR Casual Perspective: There was no immersion; the graphics were well-done (considering the low system requirements) but cut and pasted buildings and uninspired geography and in-game architecture made the world seem bland. The game and its animations were buggy, a turn-off for everyone - but especially to casuals.

(my) SWTOR non-casual perspective: Hardcore gamers found the game without challenge - many of the hardest hard mode raids were too easy to keep them interested, the gear was too easily obtained, and no new ways to play emerged from acquiring it. I finished the content in a few weeks, discovered that the gear was meaningless, and moved on.


I think FFXIV is in a much better spot, and is on the way to a magnificent recovery.


(my) FFXIV Casual perspective: I think FFXIV has nailed the immerson and discovery points. By the time my first class was 4/5ths leveled in any mmo (besides the FF series and WoW), I'd already been nearly everywhere and done nearly everything. I've just reached 40 in my first class, and I think I've seen less than a quarter of all there is. It might could use more explosions, but the ones we have are pretty good.

(my) FFXIV non-casual Perspective: Here is where I'm not especially qualified to answer, as I'm not at endgame yet. I can tell there's quite a lot of achievements to get, and I've seen that the endgame gear is no picnic to acquire - which is a plus to me. On the other hand, I've also heard that the endgame bosses are really easy - So I'm hoping this changes


While I do adore the FF series for its uniqueness, I don't think FFXIV should abandon every concept that WoW and its clones brought to the table.

-Nobody is going to complain if grouping was, in the style of WoW, easier and more encouraged (note that I mean grouping encouraged, not soloing discouraged) at low levels, especailly not the casuals.

-Nobody would complain of a wow-like sense of direction (breadcrumb quests) to point you where you might want to level at next

-Nobody would complain if there were slightly more WoW-like auction-house functionality (level and stat filters, for example).

-Nobody would complain if ability strengths and stat coefficients were more transparent, so one could make informed gear choices without spending an hour with a spreadsheet and a theorycrafting website.


TL;DR -WoW clones do some things better than FFXIV, and some things much worse. They made mistakes, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater-

[Gramul]

The fact that Square has actually listened to complaints and critiques, instead of sweeping legit problems under the rug and putting blame everyone but themselves proves to me that this game will suceed where SWtoR failed.

[Sylfa]

The fact that Square has actually listened to complaints and critiques, instead of sweeping legit problems under the rug and putting blame everyone but themselves proves to me that this game will suceed where SWtoR failed.

A hundred times yes. I have the utmost respect for this team, having seen their transparency and willingness to acknowledge that we, the players, might know something.

[Duelle]

The fact that Square has actually listened to complaints and critiques, instead of sweeping legit problems under the rug and putting blame everyone but themselves proves to me that this game will suceed where SWtoR failed.

Agreed. Though much like XIV, a big part of the game's technical problems were at the foundation. A shame, too, because it means all that great story goes to waste.

[mikoto_qc]

SE should have learn from now. They learn how to make good and bad with XI and 1.0 XIV, and they should really use what good they learn in both and drop what bad. But lets hope they are not going to a casual WoW, SW.

[Dragon]

Aside from the fact TOR had awful graphics...
Aside from the fact TOR had awful storylines & quests...
Aside from the fact TOR had awful voice acting...
Aside from the fact TOR had awful animations...

Well there's also the fact that TOR had nothing to do for anyone that wanted to group up, or rather EA-ware purposely made partying useless in TOR. But I'm sure there's plenty more to it than any of that also.