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Swtor state of end game


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Dear Devs,

 

I have been playing swtor since beta. I have always had one of the best guilds on my server. I run the raid group that has the only NiM timed run EC on the server. My guild had 3 8 mans when EC launched. We have lost 98% of our player base due to end game content not being released in a timely fashion. We recruited a lot of people to end up with one 8 man group when tfb launched.

 

EC nightmare has a loot table that only needs you to clear it 4x to get all of the loot. The expansion says nothing about a new operation and the announcements say it could be released as late as May. I look around at my guild and no one is in it that did HM EC.

 

If you want to keep your end game player base you NEED to release END GAME content faster. Being able to craft all end game gear so you never have to kill the bosses is a stupid move. When we killed NiM Kephass no one needed the loot. This gives little incentive to keep progression raiding going let alone do it after the first kill.

 

25% of my raid group is going FTP and going to raid off credits until new content is released. I think more of my raid team will quit before you release new content. If that happens I will quit too. I do not like having to recruit new people for each new raid. Some loss is reasonable but replacing a new raid group every content patch is not. This is a dead game if you can not release END GAME content faster, and if you can not create a loot system to sustain raiding after the first kill.

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They're releasing it just as fast as WoW does and you don't see WoW losing 98% of it's raiders. 'Raiders' that jump ship so easily will jump ship to a different game every month and there's no way they could keep up with the content they demand.
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They're releasing it just as fast as WoW does and you don't see WoW losing 98% of it's raiders. 'Raiders' that jump ship so easily will jump ship to a different game every month and there's no way they could keep up with the content they demand.

 

WoW isn't losing 98% of its raiders because WoW raids are much more challenging and you actually have to do them to get the best gear. In SWTOR, you do not have to complete a single tier 2 operation to get black hole gear, and it is fairly time efficient to get enough comms to gear yourself up in black hole. Dread Guard gear is the slightest upgrade over black hole, and theoretically if you have enough credits, you can buy all of the BiS gear. When you don't have to do any high-tier operations to get great gear, much less people commit to doing them. When less people want to raid, developers concentrate on other things in expense of the raid content.

 

Of course, raiding is supposed to be more for fun and not for gear, but since SWTOR is courting casual players more than "hardcore" players now (or even more so now, they always favored casual players), the casual players will dictate the future of the game, meaning the rather easy raid content, low class difficulty, and buffing of popular classes (marauder *cough *cough) will continue.

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I have to agree 100%. I'm a full 63 BiS sent yet I've never done more then the first boss in EC Nightmare, not that I couldn't but most of my guild never get to the level where they can because people keep leaving so we have to recruit new people and gear them up.
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I run the raid group that has the only NiM timed run EC on the server.

 

If you want to keep your end game player base you NEED to release END GAME content faster.

I never understand these posts. How often do you want new raids? Once a month? Just because you're in what seems to be a hard core raid guild, doesn't mean everyone else is. Of our guild's 4 raid teams, only two have finished HM TFB and I believe they are both currently at Firebrand in NiM EC. Just because you have finished the content, doesn't mean everyone else has.

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I never understand these posts. How often do you want new raids? Once a month? Just because you're in what seems to be a hard core raid guild, doesn't mean everyone else is. Of our guild's 4 raid teams, only two have finished HM TFB and I believe they are both currently at Firebrand in NiM EC. Just because you have finished the content, doesn't mean everyone else has.

 

Well you have a point, but he has a point too, even if he isn't really right when he's asking for new raids.

 

Actually, the PVE end game is boring :

-Dailies are always the same "kill <insert a number and a mob here>" for most of them.

-Raids are short and every raid is always following the same script.

-FP are even shorter.

 

Players need something to do, or they'll leave. In my guild, some players are only connected for the raids. I remember a Casino in Nar Shadaa, why not add some Blackjack, Poker, etc in the game ? Why not create some REALLY LONG dailies ? Random dailies ? Multi-planets dailies ? And I wasn't even talking about the raids.

 

I'd like to see a Raid/FP with multiple roads. It would be too much to ask for different bosses, but why not the same boss with different abilities ?

Or something already in the game : the Council in EV was a nice fight : why not a bos where the group is splitted ? Etc, etc, etc.

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Yeah. Real long dailies, I'm sure that's how many people have as a chief idea of fun content :rolleyes:

 

The problem is two fold and they contradict each other in a way that the situation is at an impasse, on one hand I definitely believe the latest gear set should not be craftable in any way, on the other hand we have the situation where every new content patch the new tier set will have some mods and enhancements that are just not optimal for the class they are intended for, so denying the crafting of the new set will make a lot of players unable to optimize their gear.

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-Dailies are always the same "kill <insert a number and a mob here>" for most of them.

They are? Let's take a look at the dailies available at Black Hole and Section X (Republic side):

 

Black Hole:

- Criminal crackdown: You need to kill some bad guys, destroy some boxes, then kill a boss.

- Counter eco-terrorism: Plug leaks in hazardous material tanks. Necessary protection stims are obtained from enemies; it's usually enough to kill one group.

- Eye and ears: Sneak into a warehouse and plant listening devices while avoiding detection. No killing involved unless you're clumsy.

- Stolen victory: Recover stolen weapons. The primary source of these is from enemies.

- Forced labor: Free enslaved engineers. No killing is necessary to complete the objective, though you may need to kill enemies that stand in your way.

- Chasing the shadow (heroic 4): Objectives alternate between infiltration and killing bosses. There are plenty of other enemies in the way.

 

Section X:

- Bio-reform: Destroy devices dispersing toxic substances. You may need to kill enemies around them, and there's a bonus objective for killing them.

- Key to decryption (area 2): Obtain data cores from droids, then kill a boss.

- Long shots (heroic 4): Destroy the big bad cannon. It's necessary to kill a whole bunch of bad guys and a boss at the end. There's a bonus mission for killing stuff.

- The Dread Guard: Collect data from terminals, last of which is protected by a boss. A multi-stage bonus mission requires first killing enemies to obtain datapads, and later killing a few elite enemies.

- Priority containment: Repair and reactivate some stuff in a prison. Final objective also requires killing a boss. There are enemies in the way, and a bonus objective for killing them.

- Imminent threat: Kill some enemies and destroy their weapons caches.

 

Summary:

- there are 12 missions in total, 9 solo and 3 for groups of varying sizes

- there are 3 bonus missions

- 2 missions and 3 bonus missions have direct objectives for killing a number of enemies

- 3 missions and 1 bonus mission require killing enemies in order to obtain items

- 5 missions and 1 bonus mission involve killing a boss to satisfy an objective

- 3 missions only require killing any enemies to get past them

- 1 mission has no enemies at all if done properly

 

I wouldn't say two out of twelve missions is "most of them". Even counting the missions that have bosses, it's still only half.

 

I chose this set of missions since I remember them better than the Belsavis and Ilum dailies. Also I think they are the most popular right now. If memory serves, the distribution is similar in the other places as well.

Edited by DataBeaver
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PvE needs real End Game Updates and not these psuedo ones where they just come out with a different mode of the same operation you have been raiding forever. I'm sorry but a new mode of a 4 or 5 boss operation just doesn't cut it. Nightmare EC was way too easy at least in 8m (can't find many 16m guilds even attempting it because 16m guilds are dying out from lack of incentives). The only boss they really put a decent effort into was kephess.

Give PvErs actual new content. New operations with new bosses and more than 5 please! I consider the last new content we receive as TFB and that op is too easy. I wish they would just do 2 modes....SM so folks can experience everything and NMM for the hardcore. Stop wasting resources and time on creating 3 modes.

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Unfortunately (for some of us), most of today's MMO players don't like to be challenged by games. I've been looking for a challenging new MMO for the last five years, and the only one I've found is Age of Conan (and no one plays that). Even Everquest 2, which I played at a high level for years, is now releasing content that everyone can complete.

 

The genre is basically dead as we knew it.

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What I'd like to see is a tier with more than 4-5 bosses at a time.

Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup.

 

I can't emphasize this anymore than that. It should be somewhere between 7-10 bosses and some of them could even be optional bosses if we're looking at some people complaining how they don't have time to do that in a week.

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Summary:

- there are 12 missions in total, 9 solo and 3 for groups of varying sizes

- there are 3 bonus missions

- 2 missions and 3 bonus missions have direct objectives for killing a number of enemies

- 3 missions and 1 bonus mission require killing enemies in order to obtain items

- 5 missions and 1 bonus mission involve killing a boss to satisfy an objective

- 3 missions only require killing any enemies to get past them

- 1 mission has no enemies at all if done properly

 

Summay : most of them are simply "kill that mob" and sometimes "don't forget to loot". You don't need to hunt the mobs, they are always at the same place. And no, a quest in a MMO shouldn't be always "go kill that ob for whatever reason".

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Summay : most of them are simply "kill that mob" and sometimes "don't forget to loot". You don't need to hunt the mobs, they are always at the same place. And no, a quest in a MMO shouldn't be always "go kill that ob for whatever reason".

Yes well, most MMORPGs are built around fighting enemies. Combat is complex enough to still provide at least some challenge over repetitions, and it also gives rise to a diverse equipment and skill system. Pure puzzles embedded in an otherwise combat-oriented MMO game tend to only be interesting for a few times at most.

 

The "Eyes and ears" mission in Black Hole? The first time I did it I was very excited to see something that involves sneaking instead of combat, but now I can run through it in less than two minutes. They didn't even bother positioning the objectives and/or detectors randomly, even though that could've vastly increased the replay value.

 

Another (mostly) non-combat mission I absolutely loved was visiting the Theoretika in the HK questline. I even switched to walk mode to soak in the atmosphere. I made sure to read all the logs to find out what had happened. But the next time I do it on another character? I already know where all the kerycards are, so I'll probably just run through it. Given the complexity of the mission, there's not even much room for meaningful randomization.

 

On Republic side Balmorra one heroic contains a logic puzzle. It can provide some challenge the first time you encounter it, but after you've got it figured out, it's solvable in a minute or two. Many people also dislike this, since they just want action.

 

There are plenty of missions on the planets as well where you can skip all or most of the mobs, especially with a stealth class. That tends to take the challenge out of them though.

 

If you're looking for an MMO game that doesn't involve combat, take a look at Puzzle pirates. It's very casual compared to most MMORPGs though.

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New *good* content takes time. None of us wants new, buggy content. That would drive people away even faster.

 

I'm sure if Bioware could push out quality raiding content faster they would. They have the exact numbers of folks raiding across the life of swtor and can see the effects of the lack of endgame raiding content. It is just that at this point in gaming creating new content is A) expensive and B) time consuming. Even Blizzard has let their raiders sit on a single raid nine months to a year several times. (And the hard core raiders tend to blaze through the content fast and then not play much until the next raid drop.)

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I have raided in eq2, wow and a few other games... and have gone experience the same dry spells in end game content there as i have here.

 

The big difference here though is that more people are clearing the content then what people were in other games, and these people that are new to success are getting bored rather quick. Old veterans, will just roll a 6th or 9th alt... or play another game (PS2) a little bit while waiting for the new content, while continuing to farm what raid content there is to avoid getting rusty.

 

As a raid/guild leader, your best bet is to explain the importance of farming a raid on a weekly basis (experience, discipline, and keeping the gears well oiled), while trying to minimize and shorten the amount of time people have to spend doing it. If people cant mange to log on for a few hours a week to continue to raid while waiting for the next raid/expansion, then most likely are flakes when it comes to raiding.

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A gigantic problem with this game, you don't have to run the raids to get gear. 2nd, the majority of your gear should not be moddable, theorycrafters go and do the math's, say I want my gear exactly like this, then go get the mods, of those mods dont exist we get complaints. There's hardly any BiS gear out there like wow had, where you need to kill X boss 3-4 times in order to get it. Moddable bracers should not be better than those dropping directly from a boss. Or any other gear for that matter, we don't need to get rid of the ability to craft top end mods, but those top end mods shouldn't give us BiS gear.

 

2nd, BW has incentivised running the hardest content in less than 2 hrs. What are we supposed to do the rest of the week. Wow gave us raids at roughly the same schedule, but it also released side raids that really only gave gear to those who hadnt been running the main raid much, bit still offered incentives to run it. Zg, aq20, and a few others I can't remember come to mind. Swtor has released 4 slightly harder than FP raids and has given us harder difficulties of those raids, that's not end game content. thats a rehash of the same stuff.

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PvE needs real End Game Updates and not these psuedo ones where they just come out with a different mode of the same operation you have been raiding forever. I'm sorry but a new mode of a 4 or 5 boss operation just doesn't cut it. Nightmare EC was way too easy at least in 8m (can't find many 16m guilds even attempting it because 16m guilds are dying out from lack of incentives). The only boss they really put a decent effort into was kephess.

Give PvErs actual new content. New operations with new bosses and more than 5 please! I consider the last new content we receive as TFB and that op is too easy. I wish they would just do 2 modes....SM so folks can experience everything and NMM for the hardcore. Stop wasting resources and time on creating 3 modes.

 

I think that the 3 mode plan is a great idea, story for the casuals, hard mode for the progression raiders, and nightmare for the really hard core raiding guilds and should be for bragging rights only, and not be part of the progression. I've never done ec nightmare but from what I've heard, 8 man was disappointingly easy once you knew the strategy. I think that the nightmare mode should be at about the same difficulty as 16 man nightmare, which, from what I've heard, is a true challenge for even the best guilds, since I think only 2 guilds in the world have ever finished it. I do agree that 4-5 bosses simply isn't enough for after 3+ months of nothing.

 

On another note, they need to add more flashpoints, and harder ones. Lost island was fun and hard at first, but now it's become as boring as the rest. When was the last new flashpoint? Almost a year ago with LI and KUS? I'm sorry bioware, but that simply isn't good enough

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