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

[Riv]

TOR was pretty crappy lol. I was max lvl on 2 characters b4 the free trial even ended.

[Antipika]

TOR was pretty crappy lol. I was max lvl on 2 characters b4 the free trial even ended.

You're just as bad as people saying XIV sucks after completing one leve.

You may like or not like a game, but at least make an effort to try and distinguish something that is "crappy" and something that "you don't like". SWTOR is not "crappy". It has downsides, but a lot of good parts as well. We are still talking about over a million subscribers (unless someone prove with a trusted source that there is less)...

[Celia]

You're just as bad as people saying XIV sucks after completing one leve.

You may like or not like a game, but at least make an effort to try and distinguish something that is "crappy" and something that "you don't like". SWTOR is not "crappy". It has downsides, but a lot of good parts as well. We are still talking about over a million subscribers (unless someone prove with a trusted source that there is less)...

There is a significant difference between having two character as max level and completing one levequest.

[Antipika]

There is a significant difference between having two character as max level and completing one levequest.

>b4 the free trial even ended.

And how is that different from experiencing the game? It's like getting PL'd in XIV from 1 to 50 and say "lol XIV, I got 50 before my free trial was over and the game sux"...

Unless Bioware made massive changes regarding leveling, I started playing back in december when the game started, getting level 50 took "some" time (provided that you were doing quests and actually reading the text). So twice 1>50 in less than 30 days mean that little to no content was played the way it should have been played (i.e. reading text, going through certain areas etc.). I won't even talk about anything end-game related.

Also if you level not one, but two characters to 50 in less than 30 days, without PL/help, it means that you played hardcore for a bit and that you at least *slightly* enjoyed the game (or have serious issues for playing something you really hate).

[Eekiki]

Also if you level not one, but two characters to 50 in less than 30 days, without PL/help, it means that you played hardcore for a bit and that you at least *slightly* enjoyed the game (or have serious issues for playing something you really hate).

Well, I haven't met a person yet that truly enjoys level grinding. It's accepted by most MMORPG veterans that "the real game begins at the level cap", so many people rush to get there as quickly as possible.

[Asiaine]

Well, I haven't met a person yet that truly enjoys level grinding. It's accepted by most MMORPG veterans that "the real game begins at the level cap", so many people rush to get there as quickly as possible.

*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.

[DNO]

*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.

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.

[Taika]

*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.

I'm with Shayla here, I do enjoy leveling up my job(s) to cap, and I'd prefer if it would take me some time. For me it's about the journey, not in a hurry to get to the end of it.

I think that's one of the issues I have with the "modern day MMORPG(-player)s": people think the "real game" is the instanced end game content, not exploring the world (or just being part of it) and having spontaneous adventures.

[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.

[Antipika]

Well, I haven't met a person yet that truly enjoys level grinding. It's accepted by most MMORPG veterans that "the real game begins at the level cap", so many people rush to get there as quickly as possible.

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).

Look, ever since Yoshi publically stated that Star Wars's problem was launching the game without enough content (which, while true, it still had more content at launch by far than XIV originally did),

SWTOR 1.0 had more content than XIV 1.22b have and will have more than XIV 1.23 unless SE release a super huge patch. But drop rate aren't low, so players went through the content faster.

Drop rate in high level 4-mans dungeons in SWTOR is 100%. Guaranteed drop on final boss and it's useable for 1 of the 4 class group of the game, meaning that if your party is made of 4 players from 4 different class group, there won't be any competition at /rolling (unlike XIV where on top of having a shit drop rate, lot of people are 7/7 jobs and you have to fight for whatever drops with at least 2 or 3 players which lower the chance to get your loot).

You can attempt a specific dungeon once every 24 hour max, but nothing prevent you to run 4 different dungeons a day. Meaning that in average, you get one guaranteed drop per day when you start gearing up. The pace will slow down a bit when you will only need 1 or 2 piece of armor (meaning that you will only do runs for the 1-2 dungeons you need).

Oh yeah, on top of armor drop, you get tokens. And you can use them to acquire piece of armor directly from NPC. It would take long to have enough token to buy Tier 2 equipment, roughly 1 month, still. That's enough to buy that very last piece of armor set you were missing.

I got my full Tier 2 set in about a month. Then T3 (Raid) was barely an improvement over T2, so why even bother (and 8-mans was dropping the same thing as 16-mans)? Nothing was even balanced in Raid yet, so I did like many, I left...

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The biggest mistake of Bioware was to listen to the community when it came to fixing the game. Stupid things that didn't require any fix were changed, while important things were overlooked.

It sounds like EN forums sometime with "PETITION FOR [...]" everywhere. Players think that because they pay $12 a month they are entitled to give orders to game designers. I am glad sometime SE do their own things, even if the community is complaining. While some complaints are off course legitimate, it doesn't mean that they should always be taken in consideration.

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.

(In b4 : "B.. But! I don't play for the drops! I play for fun!!". That's not true for most of players, you don't do Primals because they're fun after 50 wins, but because you want your weapon. Same with dungeons. Same with just anything...)

I hope 2.0 will remain the way SE wants it to be and not the way some minority on forums wants it to be.