Jump to content

Cupelixx

Members
  • Posts

    621
  • Joined

Reputation

13 Good
  1. I'm a founder, and long-term critic in the name of trying to make the game better. I actually came back with high hopes that we'd be in for some good changes now that the game is under new management. I would have expected new management to embrace what the players are looking forward to. At least that, if not even going a step further. First impressions, right? The feedback in this thread should be patently obvious as to what we will, and will not accept. You need us on your side, and this does not earn it from us. Rethink this urgently. Give us a proper sale event including generous collection unlocks, and re-evaluate your decision-making process. If you're considering a decision and a likely outcome is "this is going to be pretty unpopular with the majority of our player base", it means you're on the wrong track.
  2. I've got billions of credits and have not spent a single one on this pathetic money sink. Just when I thought feedback mattered and the system will improve, you guys show just how out of touch you are. No thanks. Want me to spend my credits out of the economy? Make it something worthwhile. Not some slot machine RNG bollocks where the odds are stacked against getting the "good" amps.
  3. FF14 is only the most prominent example of this. Engine upgrades are not something that happens lightly when cost vs. benefit has to be considered. Fact is that other companies do it. WoW's engine is vastly different and improved compared to how it was at launch. ESO is supposed to get a DX12 upgrade at some point, though there's been no real news on it for a while. Still, ESO has had improvements made. Heck, even LOTRO recently got a 64-bit client upgrade. SQ really put their money where their mouth is for FF14, and now it's a stunning example of a company that's passionate about its MMO. Other companies do make improvements, though I'd say they could always do more. With SWTOR, we have what we have. And considering who's running this show, it's a safe bet that we'll never see an engine that's up to WoW standards, much less FF14. My rig is top notch. i9 9900k @ 5ghz. 32GB RAM. RTX 2080 ti. All liquid cooled. FF14 I run full raids at 3440x1440 with maxed settings. 100FPS locked, smoother than silk and only limited by my monitor. It's a testament to optimization. This game with 8 players, well, everyone knows the performance is garbage for the visual fidelity being presented. Personally I still get high FPS, even 50+ in PvP usually. But only because my rig brute-forces the s--- out of this game. And not everyone's got thousands to spend on their gaming comp. I've accepted all of this but it's still disappointing. This engine for what was supposed to be a AAA Star Wars game, it's like putting 4 non-matching $50 tires from different manufacturers on a Lambo. You COULD do it, but just WHY. It ain't gonna work right and it's just wasted potential.
  4. This is a serious annoyance of mine. They were supposed to be balancing things out in 6.0 but it didn't happen. It's messed up that Shae is better than any other companion and that paid CM companions are much worse than even vanilla companions.
  5. I've just resigned myself to realizing that Bioware in fact wants things to be this way. -We get bull---- credit sinks that have zero effect on the wealthy and only burden the joe/jane average player. They won't put in attractive credit sinks to replace the bull---- ones because they won't allow anything to spend credits on that takes away sales from the Cartel Market. -We get a bull---- system of layered RNG on gearing now because it's the easy-cheezy way of "stretching things out". We can't have amplifiers tied to crafting because that would cut out the RNG time sink, and also cut out a way of sucking away credits from players. -We get a bull---- new crafting tier that is not just double, but multiple times more expensive than the previous tier. Not just in credit costs, but materials. On top of that, most of the new craftables are only a few % better than the previous tier. On top of THAT, reverse engineering chances of learning higher quality schematics took a huge nerf to make things even more RNG and take longer. We then get a patch because "we listen to feedback" that doesn't do nearly enough to bring things back into balance. -We get a bull---- nerf to credit payouts on heroic missions, making the previously mentioned credit sinks have a larger effect on the joe/jane average players. Less money for crew skills, less money for buying gear, less money for amplifiers. But it's all G right, because we can keep players on the treadmill longer! The writing is on the wall. This type of game design is incredibly transparent. These elements are all indicative of the philosophy "if we give players an endless mile to run, they'll just keep playing and we can devote less resources into development". The problem is that this approach will be perceived as annoying and lazy. It doesn't make for a game that's fun to play. It doesn't give the impression that the company cares about what they're shoveling out. It doesn't guarantee that everyone is just going to lap it up and keep playing/paying. Some players will soldier on through it, some will just have enough and then move on. Seeing this type of thing in WoW was enough to make me quit that game for good. FF14 is still there for me if things don't change here or I get fed up. Plenty of stuff in my Steam queue as well. I have accepted that this is just how SWTOR is now because the company does not care about the player experience. Only question now is when I get tired of it and move on to something else.
  6. Yes, there are benefits. How much depends on your system as a whole. But really, there's no reason NOT to put the game on SSD if you have one and enough space available on it.
  7. These things are definitely problems as well because they compound the issue of badly implemented credit sinks. I'm not a fan of RNG in general because I just have bad luck. I've been playing MMOs for a long time, so I know and accept there's going to be RNG particularly related to item drops. That's fine. However, we're now starting to see a very "World of Warcraft" approach which is "RNG all the things". Not only is it RNG whether my item drops or not. Now it's also RNG what item level it is, it's RNG what item level the mods are, it's RNG which subtype of mods are slotted (is it an A or B enhancement etc), it's RNG what amplifier and % rolls on the shell, and it's RNG what amplifier and % rolls on any applicable mods. If you don't get the set item drop you want, you can plunk down a million credits but it will come with RNG amplifiers. You can try to get a tech fragment discount with Kai Zykken, but it's RNG what his stock will be and then it's RNG how the item rolls. If you don't like a mod you got, you can buy one for tech fragments but it's RNG what you get and what amplifier it will have. If you don't like the amplifiers you can try to reroll them. But the amplifier pool is so diluted that RNG is NOT in your favor for getting the amplifier you want. That's putting it mildly. AND there is a credit sink attached that goes up every you reroll. If you go for stacking amplifiers based on whatever the current meta is and it gets nerfed or you just want to do something different, good luck and hopefully you've saved up another 100 million credits to reroll everything again. Crafting is no better. 500k per skill barrier of entry, then you have additional training costs on top. If you want to craft reusable biochem items, RNG to disassemble the green to get the blue schematic. Make the blue item to disassemble to learn the purple version. RNG again, except your success chance drops. If you manage to get the purple and go for the gold, RNG once again and your success chance drops further. All the while you are pissing away either a tremendous amount of time, credits, or both unless you get extraordinarily lucky with your deconstruction. I know I'm not alone in this sentiment. Bioware if you're listening, had amplifiers been another item slot on gear that we could select and buy from a vendor with credits, I would be spending my credits. Instead, you put in a system with escalating costs that has worse odds than gambling at a roulette wheel. I could reroll the amps on all of my gear, probably get it perfect, and not feel the credit cost. But I refuse to do it. I will not spend any credits on this. I will not support a mechanic that I find frustrating. People with my level of credits onhand are in the vast minority. I will not support a mechanic that needlessly burdens joe/jane average. RNG on top of RNG on top of RNG used as a way of artificially gating my character's progress and calling it "customization" while draining away my currency is a massive turnoff for me. I don't like gambling with my currency, whether in a game or in a real world casino. These mechanics are not engaging or entertaining, they're ANNOYING. I don't play games to become annoyed. This type of thing is why I quit WoW and never looked back.
  8. The whole argument of "if you're not high level raiding, you don't need it" doesn't work for me. Set bonuses and tactical items directly influence how a character is played. They directly affect a character's power. Having those bonuses alone can make even 'easy' content quicker or more enjoyable. Not even talking about amplifiers here. Set bonuses, tactical bonuses, even crafting are part of character advancement. If none of those things are strictly needed in order to 'just play the game', then surely they're not important enough for the attached credit costs to be so punitive. If I want to buy a set piece, I don't even think about it. Not even if it's my 20th alt. I'm sitting on so many credits that a million is not even a drop in the bucket to me. On the other hand, that million credits is a BIG deal to my wife, who has amassed maybe 10 million in our whole time of playing the game. My buying power is untouched, but hers takes a big hit. This kind of disparity is a problem when you implement money sinks this way. Being a billionaire, I consider myself a target for removing credits out of the economy. Fine. Let's take a look at the current approach. Before beginning, I'll preface this saying...I make hundreds of millions of credits each month playing the GTN and crafting. Though crafting, I hardly do now because of the ridiculous changes. 1) 500k credits to open each crew skill to 700. 500k is nothing to me. If I were to do this on all of my crafters, it would delete maybe 15 million out of the economy big whoop. There's a problem here though. I won't do it. Not while crafting is in its current state. I can stick to crafting legacy items and make a profit for nearly no investment. 2) Amplifier rerolls. Nope. 100% nope. Care to guess why, Bioware? RNG is not fun. I will never spend a single credit on a mechanic so heavily based on RNG that 99.9% of the time I'll get some useless bollocks like "reduced fall damage" instead of the amp I want at the % I want. Make it so I can buy the amp I want for a flat cost, then we'll talk. 3) Credit cost for buying gear from vendors. Again, I bring credits in faster than I can spend them on something like this. 4) Increased credit costs on vendors in general. Nope. Increase the cost on an already useless slot machine token from 750 credits to thousands? Thanks, I enjoyed the laugh. 5) Higher repair costs. It's a given if you play the game. Still has no effect on me. 6) Increased costs in crafting. Not just the training. But the exorbitant materials requirements and asinine odds of reverse engineering new schematics. No thanks. Amount of credits removed from the economy by me leveraging crafting and sending companions on missions on 20+ characters? Oh that's right, zero. Fix crafting and maybe I'll trickle some credits out of the economy. The problem is, none of these credit sinks really have any effect on my wealth. Most I just refuse to engage in, and the ones that are forced don't even make a dent in the wealth I build. Majority of players are not billionaires, so these credit sinks are a big deal to them. How do you remove my credits then? I have to really want to spend them. The transparent nonsense we have now isn't going to do it. Take a page from games like World of Warcraft. 2-seater mounts with mats from vendors totaling 10k gold or more (back when that was considered huge). Cool status symbols that are also functional. I dropped 10s of thousands of gold on things like that in WoW. Let me buy Shae Vizla as a companion since I missed it. I'll plunk down a few hundred million on it right now. Give me a really rare and unique color crystal from a vendor, priced at millions and millions. I love color crystals so I'll snap that right up. Give me a unique tuning or vendor flair. Make me WANT to throw credits at a vendor and I'll do it. Systems like we have now just ensure I'll spend as little as possible and keep the credits circulating the economy as I buy fun stuff from people on the GTN instead.
  9. It's actually more than just hearing about things. It's been pretty well documented that some companions, particularly ones from the CM have crippling bugs that make them unviable. It's also been tested and shown that some companions, particularly Shae Vizla are immensely stronger than others. Cartel Market companions like ISO-5R are substantially weaker than vanilla companions. Treek and HK-51 have been considered bottom-tier for a long time now. What's the status on companions being brought to more equal footing?
  10. A lot of this I can agree with. It doesn't help the discussion to come out with stuff about how mobs just stunlock you to death because that's not really what happens. My biggest complaint with NPC CC is that it's BORING. I duo almost all content with my wife. If I'm a melee character and we're doing heroics, there's going to be packs of mobs that chain their CCs at the start of the pull. The problem is that the NPC CC doesn't serve any purpose right now other than to be annoying. There's no threat. Just an instant-cast speedbump that stops me in my tracks for a couple of seconds and then I go right back to smashing their face in. Mechanics like that have no value. They're not educational, they're not engaging, and they're not a threat. They simply take away control of my character with no warning so that I can't participate in the fight unless my CDs are up. That is a mechanic that should be used very sparingly, not on every single pull of certain heroic missions. I can agree with having challenging mobs in the game as long as they make sense. Other games manage to not have statues while not taking away control of your character. A mechanic that's vastly more interesting is a briefly telegraphed 1-2 punch that you can either dodge, interrupt/stun, or cooldown through. Put "bad" on the ground, and if you don't move out, you eat a 1-2 punch of a stun quickly followed by a heavy hit for a big chunk of your HP. Even something where the only visible cue is the mob winding up for a big hit and having to move out of the way is better. There's ways of making NPCs and pulls interesting. Giving so many of them instant-cast stuns and mezzes is not it.
  11. This shows that you’re not even trying to understand the problem. You seem to think nobody has a problem with the amount of mob CC could possibly have played the game before. Snipers get an easy way to have CC immunity on a fairly short cooldown. Hooray for them. You know why that works in these situations? Pay careful attention here: it’s fire and forget protection against mobs that do not telegraph their CC. Why does this matter? Let’s use your operative example. Let’s also disregard the fact that this only works for concealment operatives. Keep in mind, there is no cast bar or early warning that you’re going to eat a CC. So...when exactly should the operative roll to not eat the CC? You can’t compare Entrench immunity to operative roll, or really ANY other classes’ immunity ability. Entrench might be the most powerful cool down in the game. Other abilities are not even close to being in the same league when you’re talking about NPC CC. Force speed does not make you immune to stuns. Assassins get a CC immunity CD, but sorcs don’t...sucks for them I guess? Stun immunity for warrior’s Charge only works on veng juggs and because mobs don’t always CC right off the pull, this is not a surefire defense. Now, let’s look at your l2p argument. Classes besides sniper that have a CC immunity have longer cool downs on those abilities. Class hard stun CD have cool downs as well. Unless you’re going from pack to pack very slowly, there’s going to be downtime on those abilities. Just making sure I understand—are you saying that mob CC is fine because these abilities have a short enough CD that they’re always up, or that people should wait for the CD before every pull? For the rest I don’t even know. Kiting mobs as a melee class? Uh...what? Even if this was a thing, you realize a lot of the CC is not point-blank range. Right? AoE abilities stunning mobs? Nope, mobs that do this are almost exclusively silver and above. Use interrupts as a ranged class? Nope, the CC abilities are INSTANT and can’t be interrupted, remember? Stun and kill them before they can stun you? Maybe. Much easier said than done if your class is not as bursty as another. Ranged classes, particularly sniper, have a massive advantage in this department. Just because a couple of classes have an easy time with mob CC is not “proof” that it’s fine for everyone else and that anyone raising the issue is just lazy or not skilled enough.
  12. Not really. The amount of stuns, mezzes, and knockbacks from NPCs is excessive. Some places are worse than others. 'A Traitor's Punishment' heroic on empire side is painful to do as a melee class. Run in, knockback with no cast time. Run back, force choked. There are packs of mobs that chain such abilities together, and they also have a habit of doing it as soon as you start a channeled ability. Don't even bring up 'well just interrupt them'. The hard stuns, knockbacks, and mezzes usually don't have a cast time. 'You have a stunbreak'. Yeah, on a cooldown. I use it once and it's down for the next pull seconds later so I eat either the full stun or the mez. Being crowd controlled over and over is not fun, especially when it's 100% unavoidable. That's not difficult gameplay, it's not engaging, and it's not strategy. It's annoying, and I don't play games to become annoyed. If they're going to have this much CC on NPCs, then there needs to also be a way of avoiding them by skill or some kind of immunity to where it can't happen on every single pull, much less multiple times in 1 pull.
  13. "Reportedly". That's not a sure thing. Even if it is true, that's not a certainty that there will be fewer resources for this game. Just because it's BW Austin doesn't mean the teams won't be separate.
  14. First, glad this is being addressed. Trying to be constructive with my feedback. Overall, the pendulum swung way too far with crafting and I don't think these changes are enough to bring things into balance. I get having increased costs in this tier but even with these changes it's out of whack. Still way too high. If we have to successively roll up subassemblies/bonded components, then base costs need to return to the 2:2:2 requirements of previous tiers. Overall costs are already much higher because successive levels of bonded components require the quality below the one you're making. Blue requires green etc. 6 is better than 10 for green components. But that's just "less bad". It's still TRIPLE the cost of the previous tier and that's before you even start combining up to blue or purple quality. Revert to 2:2:2. Remove the increased failure chance of missions for ALL yields that happened between tiers 10 and 11. Seriously, why is this even a thing? At a minimum, make it so a companion at influence level 50 nullifies the increased failure rate. The bug fix of getting the right mats in deconstruction is fine. Reverse engineering chance needs a HUGE increase at the proposed cost of materials. Either put the chances back to the previous values, or change RE entirely so that you "gain experience/progress" and get the schematic after 4 or 5 deconstructions. Dial back the number of Matrices required for schematics that actually should use them as well. The only schematics that should have exorbitant materials cost or based on limited acquisition mats are the legendary ones. Most players don't have ways of obtaining a lot of these throttled materials. Definitely a positive change. Can we also talk about Jawa Junk? 200 Jawa Junk in exchange for ONE crafting mat is not at all a viable supplement to obtaining materials. Credit where credit is due. You guys really have stepped up lately on the communication front, which is fantastic. Keep it coming.
×
×
  • Create New...