Well, I can only speak for me, but you're pointing out precisely why I feel there is not enough endgame: "6 NM FP", "8 HM FP", "4 OPS". Aside from uninspired dailies, only content focused on grouping and raiding. Which is "what WoW offers" to a T. Only less. Because even WoW offers more to 'soloers'.

 

And yes, while I had fun in the game with the class story and the occasional dungeon, this end game design isn't what I care for. It doesn't keep me interested in the game. So I play a class story, and cancel my subscription until I have gotten enough distance that I can play another class story through the game (since I can't even chose which planet to level on when).

I really like the class stories. I wish there was more focus on immersion, exploration (no, playing Mario isn't exploration) and story telling instead of "the usual WoW crap".

I actually agree with you to an extent. There is very little reason to revisit planets after you have gone through the story or to explore around. It's like the path through the game is dictated so much by the main story that there is no incentive to do anything else. Once you get to lvl 50 you can either raid, queue for warzones or start a new character.

I actually agree with you to an extent. There is very little reason to revisit planets after you have gone through the story or to explore around. It's like the path through the game is dictated so much by the main story that there is no incentive to do anything else. Once you get to lvl 50 you can either raid, queue for warzones or start a new character.

So I think they should create some events in low level planets and class quest related daily, HM class quest encounters or something to change your choice.

Well group up and do something is the major factor of the endgame of MMO, especially since WOW or EQ.

Sure I love the story more than anything but you cannot ask them to create new story for 8 classes in a few months right? There are also some events and dailies. Maybe they should add pet battle?

 

If they really can keep the story up by patches it would be super amazing but it's just not realistic.

And here we go again:

TOR is a completely different game when levelling up than "at 50"; suddeenly, there is no more story. Which is exactly what many people on these very forums discussed when TOR wasn't even out yet. And we were assured that BioWare had everything well in hand, and that we would get more story.

Of course, anybody can play through content faster than it can be developed. That is why there usually are alternate things to do. And TOR would have lent itself to so much MORE than the old, tired WoW model of end game. Swoop racing. Pazaak. Holo-chess. Hanging out in cantinas. I am only a light role player, but RP is also something that can be done - if the players get a few tools to, well, make entertainment for themselves. BAM, low development costs, high retention potential!

I mean, look at WoW and its long "contentless" stretches (one year without new content before Cata, same before MoP). No developer can produce content as fast as it's gobbled up. That is why I still don't understand Bioware's decision to focus their model so that players have a very hard time entertaining themselves in TOR.

And many people play MMORPGs not for the group content. There are other USPs: A persistent world. Socializing (without the need for grouping!). A nice read can be found here.

TOR in particular, since its predecessors were solo RPGs.

I mean, I see where you come from - I'd surmise you've played MMORPGs since the first EQ. But as you can see from TOR, this type of endgame isn't the end-all-and-be-all.

When I played WoW, I had time for raiding. I even made time for it in my schedule. Nowadays, I have other priorities. Like a family, a job, and other things that simply take priority over any activity TOR's endgame offers. But I still like playing MMORPGs when I have the time.

I feel like many players have grown up, but the genre has not grown with us.

And here we go again:

 

TOR is a completely different game when levelling up than "at 50"; suddeenly, there is no more story. Which is exactly what many people on these very forums discussed when TOR wasn't even out yet. And we were assured that BioWare had everything well in hand, and that we would get more story.

Of course, anybody can play through content faster than it can be developed. That is why there usually are alternate things to do. And TOR would have lent itself to so much MORE than the old, tired WoW model of end game. Swoop racing. Pazaak. Holo-chess. Hanging out in cantinas. I am only a light role player, but RP is also something that can be done - if the players get a few tools to, well, make entertainment for themselves. BAM, low development costs, high retention potential!

I mean, look at WoW and its long "contentless" stretches (one year without new content before Cata, same before MoP). No developer can produce content as fast as it's gobbled up. That is why I still don't understand Bioware's decision to focus their model so that players have a very hard time entertaining themselves in TOR.

 

And many people play MMORPGs not for the group content. There are other USPs: A persistent world. Socializing (without the need for grouping!). A nice read can be found here.

 

TOR in particular, since its predecessors were solo RPGs.

 

I mean, I see where you come from - I'd surmise you've played MMORPGs since the first EQ. But as you can see from TOR, this type of endgame isn't the end-all-and-be-all.

When I played WoW, I had time for raiding. I even made time for it in my schedule. Nowadays, I have other priorities. Like a family, a job, and other things that simply take priority over any activity TOR's endgame offers. But I still like playing MMORPGs when I have the time.

I feel like many players have grown up, but the genre has not grown with us.

Well I agree that TOR's biggest failure is to choose WOW's model when people are getting tired of it and I mentioned it in many threads. But under this model they already did a ok job don't you agree? End game is a big problem of MMO, even WOW used at least 1 xpc to make it casual friendly and no other success for a monthly fee MMO. Many people also blamed GW2 for not having good endgame. So it's a bottleneck of MMO, Bio clearly didn't make a try to break it.

Beside WOW, no MMO got so many players, so I guess Bio could not find a model so they copied WOW first, tried to make everything good under this model, added great story and hope the player base would give them enough time to develop. Too bad this was not the case.

I thought about this, and gave my opinion, they could add some class related daily quests, HM class quest encounters and something to change your past. Also some class quest crossovers in the future.

However I think it's not necessary to have schedule in TOR, I just do dailies, buy stuff from AH and do some random HM, it's enough to build up the gear and have some fun.

It's not that there's not enough content. It's that there's nothing left to conquer.

Raiders have every Operation on farm status, and already have the gear from those dungeons. Avid PvPers, likewise, have all their gear already. And... well, that's it. Space Combat, I guess, but space combat missions are all easy, and we've done them all, too. The farmer's all out of carrots.

There's no raids so hard players are still trying to beat the 2nd or 3rd boss, for example. But this doesn't have to be just about end-game PvE. If there were more mini-games to pass the time, or a bunch more space combat missions that increased substantially in difficulty, or meaningful open-world PvP, or something good to craft (player houses, ships, or at least customization for the interiors of our current ships) we might have something to pass the time with. If we had a world where there were things to find off the beaten path (Datacrons are only a very small gesture in this regard) we might not resort to dungeon running as our only means of entertainment inside the game world.

Currently ToR, like all too many other MMOs, turns into a glorified dungeon runner at end-game. It's not a true MMO any more than Diable 3 or Torchlight 2 are MMOs. They offer levels with multiplayer support, same as ToR. The fleet station is my "lobby," from which I connect to whatever dungeon I wish to play through. What does ToR offer at end-game other than instanced PvE and PvP?

The MMO genre has lost sight of the fact that instanced PvE and PvP are not the essence of an MMO. Those can be provided to us in a regular old multiplayer game. MMOs are supposed to take the next step, and present a living, breathing world to the player. It's kind of ironic that BioWare talks so much about "choice" in their MMO, when they failed so spectacularly to provide us an environment conducive to creating our own fun.

-Macheath.

I agree with many flaws of this game, such as the management, the engine and used WOW style when people are getting tired of it. But end game? No. Especially to casual players

 

We got 6 NM FP for level 50, 8 HM FP and most of them were released from the beginning. They are also well designed. Challenging and not too harsh on casual players. We also got 4 OPS(2 from the beginning), it's good enough for a new game. There are also WZ from the beginning.

 

Sure there should be group finder from the beginning and maybe cross server group later, but the content is good enough

 

I guess people think this way because compare to the class story, these FP/OPS aren't fun?

This game as far as I am remember had more content in it then most other MMO's at release. Especially more then WoW did. Yet everyone seems to be using these games that have had years to grow against SWToR. That just isn't fair at all. This game is a blast and I enjoy playing every day. Give Bioware the time to develope it more and it will be even larger then these so called other games with more content.

This game as far as I am remember had more content in it then most other MMO's at release. Especially more then WoW did. Yet everyone seems to be using these games that have had years to grow against SWToR. That just isn't fair at all. This game is a blast and I enjoy playing every day. Give Bioware the time to develope it more and it will be even larger then these so called other games with more content.

You're not totally off. I do tend to compare this game to FFXI a lot because I spent 7 years in that game and never played WoW. One thing that I really enjoyed about FFXI was a Missions series that was tied to allegiance as well as class. The class story was interwoven through the missions series, but at certain stages all classes participated in a grand overarching campaign of sorts in the missions with their city allegiance. One could be aligned with one of three cities.

So at end game, you completed your individual class story line, but then need to ally with in 6-18 member parties depending on the mission to beat the mission series and each expansion had a mission series.

So in other words at the end of your class quest if it worked like that in SWTOR, instead of beating the emporer solo, there would be about 5 missions at lvl 50 where we would need to band together for instanced combat that was very difficult to complete the story line. Rather than just grouping for operations.

This game desperately needs open world pvp that affects reps and imps negatively and positively for participation or lack there of.

It needs an elite/relic weapons quest line that takes 6 months plus to accomplish because of difficulty, not just comm grinds, but rather length and availability. For instance an item is needed to pop a boss mob that has to be defeated by an entire group is crafted and the mat drops once each OP in EC Nightmare. This pushes players to gear for EC Nightmare, participate in EC Nightmare, and return because everyone needs the mat that is used in the craft to pop the boss mob that drops the item for their relic weapon.

The HK companion will be similar to this idea as the quest line is supposed to extend across multiple planets to achieve it, and take a long time.

The game needs waaaay more wz maps. Like at least 4 new maps need to drop in the next 4 months so that players can play wz for 2hrs at minimum without seeing the same map. We don't need new modes, just new maps. For instance, give us a new hutball arena with the same rules, but a different lay out with new traps.

We will get there. And I agree with you. Everyone wants new MMO's to be released at the stage most MMO's are at 3-4 years down the road which is just silly. But I still think SWTOR is a little behind. I think with the latest OP release there is a ton of PvE content. If they can now buff up the PvP content with world PvP and about another 4 PvP wz maps, and add in a relic type quest for those hardcore folk that really want to go for a unique item only a few dozen people will have on the server initially then I think that there won't be many complaints left.

Hey, you copied that from an earlier post mine! I got copyrights on that phrase!

 

The price to use that phrase is two cookies and a slice of bacon, please!!!

LOL. I've been saying it for quite some time actually and sorry, but doc has me on diet. No cookies nor bacon in our household I'm afraid. I do have some diabetic friendly candy bars though that are ALMOST as good as a Mounds or a Payday.

I agree with many flaws of this game, such as the management, the engine and used WOW style when people are getting tired of it. But end game? No. Especially to casual players

 

We got 6 NM FP for level 50, 8 HM FP and most of them were released from the beginning. They are also well designed. Challenging and not too harsh on casual players. We also got 4 OPS(2 from the beginning), it's good enough for a new game. There are also WZ from the beginning.

 

Sure there should be group finder from the beginning and maybe cross server group later, but the content is good enough

 

I guess people think this way because compare to the class story, these FP/OPS aren't fun?

agree,

hardcore ppl like to grind,

worst pvp ppl like to whining about "class imbalance",

they push BW to bring us the broken patch 1.4,

they should go to EQ or WoW something.

This game as far as I am remember had more content in it then most other MMO's at release. Especially more then WoW did. Yet everyone seems to be using these games that have had years to grow against SWToR. That just isn't fair at all. This game is a blast and I enjoy playing every day. Give Bioware the time to develope it more and it will be even larger then these so called other games with more content.

TOR had 6 years in development. For comparison, WOW had only 4 and half the budget.

And it wasn`t like TOR wasn`t stealing everything it could. The problem was it stole the wrong stuff.

I really don`t see the extra 2 years in this game, nor the "lessons learned" from any other MMO that has come and gone since 2006.

Also, back in the days, you had an operating system on a floppy disk. Let`s compare modern day OS`s with that, shall we? TOR launched in 2012 . I fully expect it to be on par with 2012 standards.

The biggest problem with ToR, as far as content is concerned, is the same problem in just about all MMOs today. The level curve. I know its like it is so the casual can feel they progressed but games of the past lasted longer because it took longer to level. When you can casually level to cap, inside a month, IMO its way too quick. There is noway any team can keep up content with fast level curves.

It should take the average player atleast 4 or 5 months to level to cap. Hardcores would do it in 1 to 2 still but too bad. Extreme casuals would probably take 8 months to a year. To me, this would be the perfect level curve.

Another thing this game is missing is collections. EQ 2 and Rift have a good collection system. Those things take a while to complete. It gives people **** to do that isnt just Ops/Warzones. Guild achievements/perks is also a lacking feature which also gives people **** to do. Legacy would have been good but they made it a credit grind. They should have just made it an xp grind and not opened the levels until the system was implemented. Spread it out more so you didnt get all the perks available by level 20. This messed up with that one.

Yea, let's blame it on WoW instead of SWTOR's own failures

WoW is the reason that 2 million copies of SWTOR sold

WoW is the reason that only 1.7 million of those 2 million led to subscriptions

WoW is the reason there was only 1.3 million a few months later

WoW is the reason that a few months later we were down to "over 500k but under 1 million"

WoW is the reason that the game was announced as going f2p when just a few months earlier Greg made his comment to the contrary.

WoW is the reason so many big names have left the company, mere months after they told us what makes SWTOR unique is that they're keeping the team together to develop more content...

 

Now, quoting the above facts will, of course, get me branded a "hater" despite the fact that I still play the game and still consider it an overall fun game despite its failures (don't worry, I'm used to it and have somewhat embraced it). As for endgame, now that my guild (a very casual guild at that) has cleared Terror, we now have what to do? People in our guild are already going on another haitus. For me, it's back to the alt's class stories. Soon, there won't be even that.

 

Yes, WoW has been out many years, but SWTOR (and other new games) isn't competing with WoW as it was years ago. It's competing with WoW as it is now. Unrealistic expectations due to that? Perhaps, but it is what it is. I quit WoW myself shortly after Cataclysm and have no desire to go back and I certainly didn't want SWTOR to be "WoW in space" (and I laugh at those who call it such). Despite that, you have to admit there are some things they did right to have been as successful as they were, so it would be foolish to say "No! They did that in WoW! We can't do that here!" without at least considering what positives it might bring to the table.

That's a really good point. After clearing the easy as piss raids and HM Flash points what do we do?? So i've finished raiding for the night, done all my dailies, And lvled an alt for a bit (I could lvl more but I don't really want to spend all of my time on an MMO grinding lvls all the time)...... Now i'll just spend an hour doing laps of the fleet because there's nothing to do.

The raids are easy but heaps of good fun. So that aspect of the "lack of content" isn't so much the issue I think it's more the little things. Like achievements for example.

I agree with many flaws of this game, such as the management, the engine and used WOW style when people are getting tired of it. But end game? No. Especially to casual players

 

We got 6 NM FP for level 50, 8 HM FP and most of them were released from the beginning. They are also well designed. Challenging and not too harsh on casual players. We also got 4 OPS(2 from the beginning), it's good enough for a new game. There are also WZ from the beginning.

 

Sure there should be group finder from the beginning and maybe cross server group later, but the content is good enough

 

I guess people think this way because compare to the class story, these FP/OPS aren't fun?

You have to remember WoW was basically competeing against EQ1 at that time, and besides nicking and including pretty much every innovation EQ1 had made, they also made it easier (EQ1-lite = WoW).

SWTOR is in a much more mature ecosystem, and frankly having an end game of dailys (these were OLD and BORING when WoW introduced them in BC [2006]) and raiding probably won't cut it in an MMORPG every again.

People want good PvP (not stun to death broken Resolve farming), they want RvR (where IS RvR?) they want alternate and sideways expansion of characters (Legacy could have been this by seems to have been turned into more of a pre-cashshop).

And I think they want innovation, now whilst WoW didn't really innovate over EQ1, it did in a way, because it removed ALL the hard bits out of EQ1............ now if you removed all the harder bits out of WoW you'd have nothing left.

I honestly think Rift was/is the ultimate EQ1/WoW/Themepark Model MMORPG......... it just doesn't have a very strong IP to support it.

On the PvE side you might be right (don't play much PvE stuff), but as a PvP player I think there is a lack of elder game content for me. Okay a new warzone is coming, but I would like to see more open world PvP (too bad that they haven't fixed Ilum) or that ranked warzones would actually pop from time to time (make it cross server and/or let people do ranked warzones single queued.)

They're aiming to release the new open world pvp in January.

I think one of the most major things this game lacks atm is open world pvp, and i find it playing this game with both pvp+pve is most enjoyable.

Well I agree that TOR's biggest failure is to choose WOW's model when people are getting tired of it and I mentioned it in many threads. But under this model they already did a ok job don't you agree? End game is a big problem of MMO, even WOW used at least 1 xpc to make it casual friendly and no other success for a monthly fee MMO. Many people also blamed GW2 for not having good endgame. So it's a bottleneck of MMO, Bio clearly didn't make a try to break it.

Agreed. My frustration with Bioware is mostly due to the fact that fans and supporters have tried to make it clear to them for years prior to release that this approach to endgame wouldn't be enough any more, that something more and different would be needed.

And to be honest, I wouldn't want to find that "different thing". But then, I am not a developer. And other companies DO try a different approach.

The much (and wrongfully) maligned Secret World for example: They have provided a content update each month since release. They've already added full post-creation customization of characters (barber, facial reconstruction), they have added new clothing, they have added new missions (and missions, investigative in particular, in TSW play differently than in any other MMORPG). They have even added a whole new weapon (which would be close to a new class specialization in TOR). They have added new emotes and improved old ones. They got rid of many clipping bugs for clothing.

There are new emotes scheduled to come.

There are world-wide events (like the halloween event, which is currently running).

And it's not like they ONLY do that. They released Nightmare Mode for additional dungeons, a LFG tool was implemented, they added new lairs (which are raids in world zones), and the first 'real' raid zone is scheduled.

Agh, I am antsy to play TSW again just typing this. Now, where did I stow my G36...?

Beside WOW, no MMO got so many players, so I guess Bio could not find a model so they copied WOW first, tried to make everything good under this model, added great story and hope the player base would give them enough time to develop. Too bad this was not the case.

Well, why which MMO has so many/few players is something we could discuss for hours. I tend to think that many players in WoW are not gamers, but strictly WoW players. They know no other game, and want no other game.

That said, I think that TSW is vastly superior to TOR in terms of update content and 'end game' . Yet TSW did very poorly sales-wise. Which is something I really lament because it seems very many people just played the 'Oh, it's from Funcom' angle, and chose to forgo the game.

I thought about this, and gave my opinion, they could add some class related daily quests, HM class quest encounters and something to change your past. Also some class quest crossovers in the future.

 

However I think it's not necessary to have schedule in TOR, I just do dailies, buy stuff from AH and do some random HM, it's enough to build up the gear and have some fun.

Yes, this is (w/o doing the FPs) how I spent my first week after hitting 50 (back March or something), too. After that, I didn't bother logging in, because it wasn't fun for me, but felt more like a second job: Grab Dailies, rattle them off, maybe buy something, log out.

HERE IS WHY SWG had a BETTER END GAME.

Grinding for stuff: People seem to love this and it keeps us doing things for hours.

The end game grind is all about Gear Progress, which is a mistake IMO as this means you constanty have to create new upgraded gear that eventually leads to level cap increases. This leads to old content becoming less played and new content becoming out played to Quickly.

Alot of the end game gear could be purchased and there was heroic jewlery sets for completing heroics, but that was not the end all. Players love to collect stuff, and rather than create better gear, they offered vanity items; ie: rare armor (strickly cosmetic), decorations, rare mounts, rare pets, titles, costumes (i spent months trying to locate a costume so i could turn into Rancor, i ended up collecting all the costumes so i was often a jawa in mos eisley ).

Just add collection items and rare drops, the one thing these collections added was reason to revist old planets, currenty we spend way too much time hanging out all day on fleet. This works well, heck we see it work because people collect the holocrons/datacrons. SWTOR needs to not dicount the Vantiy items, players love that stuff.

The GALACTIC CIVIL WAR

There is really no impact made by our players on the affects of the galaxy, we have warzones (which are good way to get into pvp) and the storyline but nothing much.

During the last couple years SOE included the ability to capture certain areas and contro lthem for your faction, this provided alot of entertainment and gave the players the ability to partake in the war. These areas could be fought over in eithr PVE or PVP. Every hour there was an invasion on one of three major cities that players could partake in and help their faction, there was also a PVE or PVP option. This provided a great deal of fun and some guilds protected certain cities to the teeth which led to some wars between opposing guilds.

The way the planets are designed and the impact story has on certain planets, I dont see planetary control as an option. Yet, i dont see why we can not have rotating invasions in certains cities, in fact It would be even more interesting if those cities were added to existing planets so that it does not affect the storyline areas and NPCs could be added to give out PVE and PVP missions during the invasions . The rewards here could be shinys, comms, tokens or other vanity items.

ON A SIDE NOTE: GIVE COMMS FOR OPEN WORLD PVP KILLS, Perhaps even create a PVE option where you can gain comms for attacking opposing military non-player members that can be used to buy more unique armor or titles.

Yea, let's blame it on WoW instead of SWTOR's own failures

WoW is the reason that 2 million copies of SWTOR sold

WoW is the reason that only 1.7 million of those 2 million led to subscriptions

WoW is the reason there was only 1.3 million a few months later

WoW is the reason that a few months later we were down to "over 500k but under 1 million"

WoW is the reason that the game was announced as going f2p when just a few months earlier Greg made his comment to the contrary.

WoW is the reason so many big names have left the company, mere months after they told us what makes SWTOR unique is that they're keeping the team together to develop more content...

 

Now, quoting the above facts will, of course, get me branded a "hater" despite the fact that I still play the game and still consider it an overall fun game despite its failures (don't worry, I'm used to it and have somewhat embraced it). As for endgame, now that my guild (a very casual guild at that) has cleared Terror, we now have what to do? People in our guild are already going on another haitus. For me, it's back to the alt's class stories. Soon, there won't be even that.

 

Yes, WoW has been out many years, but SWTOR (and other new games) isn't competing with WoW as it was years ago. It's competing with WoW as it is now. Unrealistic expectations due to that? Perhaps, but it is what it is. I quit WoW myself shortly after Cataclysm and have no desire to go back and I certainly didn't want SWTOR to be "WoW in space" (and I laugh at those who call it such). Despite that, you have to admit there are some things they did right to have been as successful as they were, so it would be foolish to say "No! They did that in WoW! We can't do that here!" without at least considering what positives it might bring to the table.

ok so you didn't adress the question. How did it launch with no end game?

It launched with more of an end game then any other MMO I have ever played?

They launched with 2 end game raids

3 end game dungeons ( D7, Battle Of Ilum, and False Emperor)

what 7 Hard mode dungeons?

3 Warzones with a PVP leveling system

and Space Missions

That is a lot of content. Now they did make a mistake in trying to make the PVE end game accesable for all they made it too easy for the real hard core raiders.

But to say it didn't have an end game is just silly.

Now look at what they have added since launch

2 new end game Raids

2 new end game flashpoints

1 new warzone

a couple of new space missions

Not bad that's more content then WoW has ever put out in the same amount of time.

Oh I almost forgot. This is the first real MMO that gives you a reason to roll alts so yes in a way rolling alts is another form of end game.

These might not be the end games you want but it is still an end game.

BTW what does GW2 have for end game? I seroiuisly do want to know

Content Locusts.

this ^^^

BTW what does GW2 have for end game? I seroiuisly do want to know

- Dungeons. Each (explorable mode) dungeon has its own specific gear set, obtainable with commendations acquired by defeating the bosses in the dungeon. You need to complete one dungeon about 80-100 times to get a full set of that dungeon. Each of them have three paths which are somewhat different from each other.

- PvP: small-scale instanced PvP and large scale instanced PvP. Yes, WvWvW isn't actual open world PvP, it's large scale instanced PvP. A nice feature though.

- Farming dynamic events. In the endgame areas (Orr) these are huge zergfests as capped players mostly hang out there. Quite tedious.

- Exploring the map. It's fun to get all the vistas and jumping puzzles and such. You can also run into some challenging bosses or dynamic events which are not zerged. This, imho, is the best part of GW2 endgame but the least rewarding as well: the game downscales you to the level of the area you're in but the rewards are comparatively smaller, too.

ok so you didn't adress the question. How did it launch with no end game?

Now look at what they have added since launch

 

2 new end game Raids

2 new end game flashpoints

1 new warzone

a couple of new space missions

 

Not bad that's more content then WoW has ever put out in the same amount of time.

People compare this game to WoW so much ... but wow was horrible for content.

DDO was worse but lets give you a history lesson on what the biggest game ever to go F2P and now the leader in F2P market which is the reason SWTOR investors said they wanted this game to LAUNCH free to play.

launched with 1 raid

in first year added Dragon raid and Titan raid (2 raids same as SWTOR)

Added Von series (4 quests and 2 part raid)

Added Restless isles (4 quests and 2 part raid)

Added PVP system (launched with no pvp)

Added Enhancements player system

and it was in pre launch development for 2 years vs SWTOR which was in pre launch development for almost 8.

Since f2p DDO has put out content on a pretty steady pace between 5-15 dungeons every 2-3 months plus 3-4 raids in the first two years ... something like 5 full new areas since f2p (doubled in size but similar to Black Hole). Plus events. All with a development team that is half the size of SWTORs.

And this is a game that people think is a failed dead game.... but it puts out twice the content in the same time as SWTOR does.

OH and FYI there has been no new space combat since launch ....

SWTOR team better wake up and smell the lost money .... or this game will die. Come F2P they need to launch content in massive waves at a decent pace. You dont have to keep up with players ... that is impossible to do. But you need to have new and exciting AND REWARDING things for them to do.

One of the best things DDO ever did was stop catering to Elitests ..... content doesnt have to be so hard that only 2% of the player base can enjoy it. It has to be easy enough for more then 50% of the player base to enjoy it.

When a raid is being beat by 50% of the people attempting it ... that is a good thing ... when only 2% of the people are attempting it then its A BAD THING.

No reason why good players shouldn't be able to beat EC HM when geared in Full BH with only the seriousness needed to raid. No reason why full BH wearing players should not be able to blow through TFB on SM. But i have run with more people who cant get through the first two bosses of EC HM in 6 hours of playing and in the 8 different full BH pugs i have been in have only gotten through the first two bosses of TFB on SM.

That tells me the game is far too hard for the people who are playing it ... and that is on a PVE server where the people doing the raiding are wearing top end PVE gear in a raid (in the case of TFB) that drops a teir of gear below what people are wearing.

This game wants to survive it needs to cater to tha majority not the minority. People want more challenge ... do EC SM in your companions Columi gear .... but people dont want challenge they want everyone else to be challenged so that they can be the only ones with the top end gear. So they can sell 27 armorings for 5 million a piece that no one can afford except others who are hardcore elitists and farmers or people spending real money of farmed coin.

Time to figure out what your population is filled with and make sure they are happy ... cause i can tell you this its not filled with 500k of elitists and hardcore raiders ... the majority of people can barely play there classes properly IMHO. So when the minority can enjoy content its no wonder the majority are leaving the game never to return even when new content does come out.

Well there are a lot of problems of SWTOR, but I don't think lack of end game is a major factor.

You're wrong. My guild clears HM TFB in one night. Then we faceroll on our keyboards through EC HM and SM TFB/EC for extra mats. We only do non-HM TFB because we want the mats.

I haven't played WoW in years, but when farming content 2 weeks out of the gate and there isn't hope for another operation for 2-3 months... that's terrible and snorefest level of endgame. Sure, there's NiM EC coming out... "sometime soon"... but that's not a new operation, that's just rehashing the old one that was a pretty terrible operation to begin with.

If you think this game has a decent amount of endgame, I would like to disagree with you because it's all completed too quickly. You can call me an elitist, but that's not what I'm saying here. There should be enough content for the casual to enjoy the game at his or her own pace, and enough content for the more die-hards.

The easiest way to do it would be to make an operation that has more bosses and takes more time to actually complete in terms of progression. I don't mind if 2 months down the road HM TFB was a one-night clear thing, but with only 5 bosses with pretty easy mechanics it's a shame about this game.

I agree with many flaws of this game, such as the management, the engine and used WOW style when people are getting tired of it. But end game? No. Especially to casual players

 

We got 6 NM FP for level 50, 8 HM FP and most of them were released from the beginning. They are also well designed. Challenging and not too harsh on casual players. We also got 4 OPS(2 from the beginning), it's good enough for a new game. There are also WZ from the beginning.

 

Sure there should be group finder from the beginning and maybe cross server group later, but the content is good enough

 

I guess people think this way because compare to the class story, these FP/OPS aren't fun?

I have always thought the content for pve was a lot more than pvp. However, even though there is a decent amount of content for pve, it is done quickly.

I think the problem is how it translates in so many levels.

For example it takes around 200 hours to complete a class. Thats an over estimate, but normally its around 7 days played for me when i finish a class if i am waiting for groups, but if not it can be a lot lower. So it takes a lot of time to get to end game.

The end game can be done in a month casually. In comparison to the lvling, that pve content is quick for those who dont plan on playing alt players. There should be more unique rewards from FP/raids which also encourage customization with lower mod costs.

Now for alts, the problem is side questing, and how static the game can feel. There is no day/night cycle, no public questing or dynamic events, limited character creation, NPC are mostly humanoid and do not move etc. So the short pve end game experience, and limited alt experience compared to a first run through a faction can have a very detrimental effect and keeping players subbed.

Then also pvp is another aspect of the game which is even worse, if a player does not plan on doing pve content or raids. Since 1. It takes around a week of /played time which is around 200 hours to reach an end game that is limited to WZ, the same WZ from lvl 1-50. And for pvp it basically revolves around WZ with no open world pvp set up, but griefing players or camping bases.

So end game is not terrible but the overall trade-offs and the intent of an MMO to keep players interested is not up to par for swtor. It should have definetly added more repeatable content that is pvp even something like pazaak, but more importantly open world pvp with large scale pvp, and long term rewards which encourage people to play one character.

Since by making the solo character experience more rewarding it also adds to the alt experience as well.

You're wrong. My guild clears HM TFB in one night. Then we faceroll on our keyboards through EC HM and SM TFB/EC for extra mats. We only do non-HM TFB because we want the mats.

 

I haven't played WoW in years, but when farming content 2 weeks out of the gate and there isn't hope for another operation for 2-3 months... that's terrible and snorefest level of endgame. Sure, there's NiM EC coming out... "sometime soon"... but that's not a new operation, that's just rehashing the old one that was a pretty terrible operation to begin with.

 

If you think this game has a decent amount of endgame, I would like to disagree with you because it's all completed too quickly. You can call me an elitist, but that's not what I'm saying here. There should be enough content for the casual to enjoy the game at his or her own pace, and enough content for the more die-hards.

 

The easiest way to do it would be to make an operation that has more bosses and takes more time to actually complete in terms of progression. I don't mind if 2 months down the road HM TFB was a one-night clear thing, but with only 5 bosses with pretty easy mechanics it's a shame about this game.

that's more of an arguement about the current state of MMOs. The problem isn't a lack of content it's the ease at which one can beat it. Now this isn't the developers fault it's actually the interenets fault.

Tell me did your guild sit there and figure out all the boss fights on your own? Or did you watch some youtube videos or read a guide on how to beat the bosses?

The problem is with the ease of information all raids can be beat in a few hours. All the hard work has been removed there is no time spent figureiing out mechanics. That were most of the time was spent on back in the day that and bosses only dropping 2 loot items for 20 to 40 people. So it was an artificial time sink in a way.

that's more of an arguement about the current state of MMOs. The problem isn't a lack of content it's the ease at which one can beat it. Now this isn't the developers fault it's actually the interenets fault.

 

Tell me did your guild sit there and figure out all the boss fights on your own? Or did you watch some youtube videos or read a guide on how to beat the bosses?

 

The problem is with the ease of information all raids can be beat in a few hours. All the hard work has been removed there is no time spent figureiing out mechanics. That were most of the time was spent on back in the day that and bosses only dropping 2 loot items for 20 to 40 people. So it was an artificial time sink in a way.

That's not entirely true. Boss strats have been around since WoW Vanilla and yet TBC is hailed by many in the WoW community as the best raiding time in that game where bosses were fun, challenging, and some of the final bosses weren't killed for months after release. And there was plenty of youtube and online boss stras for those bosses, not including downloaded mods specific for certain bosses and certain mechanics.

Even then, weren't some guilds clearing HM TFB on the PTS that was out for just over 2 weeks? The last game I played, Rift, the first people didn't clear out HK for a couple months after it's release. So, with no online strats:

HM TFB: 2 Weeks - 5 bosses

Rift HK: Couple Months - 11 bosses

Even with online strats it took our guild (back in Rift) about 2 raids nights to beat the first boss. In the first raid night of HM TFB with online strats we took the first 2 bosses.

So you can' t just blame it on the fact that there's online guides. Online guides can only help so much, but it's about execution in those raids. Sometimes, you'll read a guide and it seems like there's 4 million mechanics and then when you get in there it's sort of like, "oh, that wasn't so bad".

In the end, this game just doesn't deliver hard enough content that has 7-11 bosses. I wish they would do that, but they don't. Sadly, this is probably my last major content patch.

That's not entirely true. Boss strats have been around since WoW Vanilla and yet TBC is hailed by many in the WoW community as the best raiding time in that game where bosses were fun, challenging, and some of the final bosses weren't killed for months after release. And there was plenty of youtube and online boss stras for those bosses, not including downloaded mods specific for certain bosses and certain mechanics.

 

Even then, weren't some guilds clearing HM TFB on the PTS that was out for just over 2 weeks? The last game I played, Rift, the first people didn't clear out HK for a couple months after it's release. So, with no online strats:

HM TFB: 2 Weeks - 5 bosses

Rift HK: Couple Months - 11 bosses

 

Even with online strats it took our guild (back in Rift) about 2 raids nights to beat the first boss. In the first raid night of HM TFB with online strats we took the first 2 bosses.

 

So you can' t just blame it on the fact that there's online guides. Online guides can only help so much, but it's about execution in those raids. Sometimes, you'll read a guide and it seems like there's 4 million mechanics and then when you get in there it's sort of like, "oh, that wasn't so bad".

 

In the end, this game just doesn't deliver hard enough content that has 7-11 bosses. I wish they would do that, but they don't. Sadly, this is probably my last major content patch.

Well it changed long ago, the normal mode Lich King was killed very early, HM took like weeks.

I don't agree with Vanilla is the best, Vanilla require 40 people to raid and you have to have some backup, so large amount had to be spent on man management and it's not casual friendly at all, it hit the end in Naxxramas, where only the elite guilds can do it well and large large amount of time had to be spent. If Blizzard keep goes with it WOW won't last till now. The current players surely wouldn't accept it. Cata lost many players partly because the dungeons were too hard in like 4.0 I remember.

Also most of the player would want to kill things quickly. Those elite players don't pay extra money.