I've only recently hit 50 and haven't explored hardmodes yet but I still wanted to provide general feedback on how I feel about flashpoints in SWTOR.

1. Accessibility

It's great to have all/most instances accessible right from the fleet. But it's problematic that you have a lot of instances with quest-pre-requisites and stuff like that. I've seen "orange" portals more than once because people weren't "qualified" for a particular instance.

2. Design

Diversity is important, both visually and game-play wise. Yet the amount of flashpoints that use the same generic space-station layout is sad. It seems like 80% of instances are made up of these "interior" design templates and it's boring as hell.

3. Pacing

Most flashpoints feel drawn out by the excessive number of trash-mobs. There are simply so many at times, it gets tedious quickly.

4. Trash mobs

Trash mobs, for most part, are EXTREMELY weak. 90% of the time they require no tactics or coordination, they don't even require healing or tanking.

Now having easy trash isn't bad per-say. It can serve as a tension relief after a challenging boss-fight or simply make players feel heroic. But having such weak mobs plastered throughout every zone just makes it a bore.

In the case of trash quality > quantity. Less trash, but more involving is the way to go.

5. Encounter design

I feel that Bioware's only way of making bosses actually bosses, is by giving them stupid amounts of HP. Incidentally, I feel that the actual challenge of bosses would be almost unchanged f they all lost 30% of their current HP.

But that's not the big issue. My issue is with encounter transparency.

A good PvE designer will anticipate player common sense and drop clues as to what abilities a boss might have, BEFORE the actual encounter occurs.

Here's a thing. You don't need to remind people that interrupting abilities is generally a good thing. Players will do that by themselves or at least figure it out very quickly.

But once you get to non-intuitive stuff, like throwing Darth Malgus off the platform, you really need to drop specific hints or clues beforehand or otherwise you'll frustrate you players.

Stuff players do intuitively:

1. Run out of fire/explosions/bad stuff that's on the ground.

2. Interrupt casts

3. Avoid lazer-beams and Blaster-fire

4. Kill something that is healing another (as long as this is visualized via a healing beam for example)

5. Not attack a dangerous looking shield

Etc. etc. There's many more I could add. MMO players have built up a lot of expertise over time.

Borderline unintutive is to spam AoE spells to decloak a boss who will otherwise 1-hit you out of thin air. Especially without a combat log or much in the way of visual clues, it's really difficulty for players to figure out what went wrong and why.

Even if you wanted, figuring out stuff yourself can be annoying because the game doesn't give you the necessary feedback to work with.

Certainly unintuitive is to require multiple players to spam a knock-back ability within a limited time frame so that the boss can fall into the abyss the same way a villian did in a 30 year old movie. Yeah, it's cool and a nice homage but it's certainly not intuitive design. And since there are no real clear clues or implications beforehand, google is really the only alternative.

That my friends, is poor game design.

Most of the poor design concepts come from them trying to be different than WoW where it isn't necessary. If a system works, why screw with it?

I see what you mean. I'm not asking them to be different for the sake of being different. Game and encounter design is something Blizzard excels at, and that's something I'd wish Bioware would pay MORE attention to.

I've only recently hit 50 and haven't explored hardmodes yet but I still wanted to provide general feedback on how I feel about flashpoints in SWTOR.

 

1. Accessibility

 

It's great to have all/most instances accessible right from the fleet. But it's problematic that you have a lot of instances with quest-pre-requisites and stuff like that. I've seen "orange" portals more than once because people weren't "qualified" for a particular instance.

 

2. Design

 

Diversity is important, both visually and game-play wise. Yet the amount of flashpoints that use the same generic space-station layout is sad. It seems like 80% of instances are made up of these "interior" design templates and it's boring as hell.

 

3. Pacing

 

Most flashpoints feel drawn out by the excessive number of trash-mobs. There are simply so many at times, it gets tedious quickly.

 

4. Trash mobs

 

Trash mobs, for most part, are EXTREMELY weak. 90% of the time they require no tactics or coordination, they don't even require healing or tanking.

 

Now having easy trash isn't bad per-say. It can serve as a tension relief after a challenging boss-fight or simply make players feel heroic. But having such weak mobs plastered throughout every zone just makes it a bore.

 

In the case of trash quality > quantity. Less trash, but more involving is the way to go.

 

5. Encounter design

 

I feel that Bioware's only way of making bosses actually bosses, is by giving them stupid amounts of HP. Incidentally, I feel that the actual challenge of bosses would be almost unchanged f they all lost 30% of their current HP.

 

But that's not the big issue. My issue is with encounter transparency.

 

 

A good PvE designer will anticipate player common sense and drop clues as to what abilities a boss might have, BEFORE the actual encounter occurs.

 

Here's a thing. You don't need to remind people that interrupting abilities is generally a good thing. Players will do that by themselves or at least figure it out very quickly.

 

But once you get to non-intuitive stuff, like throwing Darth Malgus off the platform, you really need to drop specific hints or clues beforehand or otherwise you'll frustrate you players.

 

Stuff players do intuitively:

 

1. Run out of fire/explosions/bad stuff that's on the ground.

 

2. Interrupt casts

 

3. Avoid lazer-beams and Blaster-fire

 

4. Kill something that is healing another (as long as this is visualized via a healing beam for example)

 

5. Not attack a dangerous looking shield

 

Etc. etc. There's many more I could add. MMO players have built up a lot of expertise over time.

 

 

Borderline unintutive is to spam AoE spells to decloak a boss who will otherwise 1-hit you out of thin air. Especially without a combat log or much in the way of visual clues, it's really difficulty for players to figure out what went wrong and why.

 

Even if you wanted, figuring out stuff yourself can be annoying because the game doesn't give you the necessary feedback to work with.

 

Certainly unintuitive is to require multiple players to spam a knock-back ability within a limited time frame so that the boss can fall into the abyss the same way a villian did in a 30 year old movie. Yeah, it's cool and a nice homage but it's certainly not intuitive design. And since there are no real clear clues or implications beforehand, google is really the only alternative.

 

That my friends, is poor game design.

Sounds like you miss WoW.

Dudebro, you admittedly haven't played HM FP's. Moreover, your points at somewhat...lacking?

It's great to have all/most instances accessible right from the fleet. But it's problematic that you have a lot of instances with quest-pre-requisites and stuff like that. I've seen "orange" portals more than once because people weren't "qualified" for a particular instance.

Almost every FP has a quest that you need to pickup to enter. Guess what, its almost always near the flashpoint! You want it easier, like WoW - right? Thats what your basically implying.

2. Design

Diversity is important, both visually and game-play wise. Yet the amount of flashpoints that use the same generic space-station layout is sad. It seems like 80% of instances are made up of these "interior" design templates and it's boring as hell.

Since your being so subjective, in your "in-depth" design analysis of TOR... I will be just as subject and say instances are fresh and appealing, I've spent the last 10 years in dungeons and caves - bring on a spaceship.

3. Pacing

Most flashpoints feel drawn out by the excessive number of trash-mobs. There are simply so many at times, it gets tedious quickly.

Again, not having done hardmodes - it sounds like your making quite a judgment. Since your basing all of your designer-level experiences off of WoW - you realize WoW had slogs initially as well right...? Right?

Not only that - since you haven't played these FPs very much, you don't seem privy to the whole "experienced" thing, i.e. if you've done it quite a bit - people start moving faster. Downing trash/reaching bosses comes at a much faster clip when you've actually spent time in them, try it.

Gah, I can't even continue. Your ************ about trash mobs...

Let me TL;DR this for you.

You want a game that has crazy cool, but short, tunnels full of awesome setpieces NOT IN SPACE that has no "trash" mobs, where every boss has low HP but requires critical thinking puzzles that challenge you every time you play.

I'm not even a fanboi, there are multiple areas where this game upsets me. They are concerned with UI/AB lag, bugs, and some end-game itemization. My gripes are contained within the world they created, but didn't optimize 100% - your gripes are a fantasyland of "wharz my WoW"?

Sounds like you miss WoW.

 

Dudebro, you admittedly haven't played HM FP's. Moreover, your points at somewhat...lacking? ...

Too long to quote all of that or it would make my post annoyingly long when I actually have little to say other than that I completely agree with everything you've stated.

I'm with Raehj here, I don't think you've run a HM yet. Also, when you're referring to the boss tactics not being obvious, what do you want Bioware to do? You want there to be a voiceover for the boss yelling, "NOW!! GET READY FOR MY BLASTER FLURRY!!!" ten seconds before the boss does his Blaster Flurry ability so you have time to comprehend that you may want to interrupt that? Or better yet, "NOW!!! DON'T PUSH ME OVER THAT LEDGE THERE EVEN THOUGH WHEN I FORCE LIGHTNING I LOSE MY IMMUNE BUFF!!!"

Get real bro. Just play the game some more and wipe a few times so you know what to do. Pretty soon you'll realize just how easy the boss tactics are.

I think Hk47 decloaking was a pretty cool use of the concept that dealing dmg to a stealthed player or ennmy decloaks him.

Malgus has a buff on him saying hes knockable now.

It's HM. You are supposed to die to boss encounters when you have no ****** clue what to do.

There's no clue to push Malgus over the ledge? Realy? And what is this freaking shiny chest full of granades? And what is the discription of the granade saying more to the point?

Pulse Grenade

Binds on Pickup

Requires Level 40

Use: An experimental pulse grenade that will knock its target back a short distance, it may be useful in defeating Darth Malgus.

How could they make it more obvious?! Oh wait! They could add a timer bars for each ability boss does, font 60 warnings in the middle of the screen telling you exacly what to do, allow you to see if you realy are far enough from another player if spreading out is required and ofc a sound warning in case you miss that big mesage! You seem to realy mess up what is intuitive and what is not possibly because of DBM holding your hand for last few years (yes I also have the feeling that this thread is just "missing WoW much" if you didn't realize yet).

As much as I'd love some sort of threatmeters to be in TOR and possibly combat log with parsers I realy don't want any form of addons beside that. Just waiting for the costumizable UI and fixes for all the annoying bugs in boss fights and I'll be all happy.

 

How could they make it more obvious?! Oh wait! They could add a timer bars for each ability boss does, font 60 warnings in the middle of the screen telling you exacly what to do, allow you to see if you realy are far enough from another player if spreading out is required and ofc a sound warning in case you miss that big mesage! You seem to realy mess up what is intuitive and what is not possibly because of DBM holding your hand for last few years (yes I also have the feeling that this thread is just "missing WoW much" if you didn't realize yet).

Malgus puts giant warnings on your screen and every boss emotes a mechanic prior to doing it. Not sure what you're point was.

Somebody is a little too used to WoW......

In all fairness though I'm a little used to the system as well given how tanking works in this game and in WoW, and I always feel like I'm doing something wrong when I can't get every single mob firing at me. You basically have to learn to accept things a certain way to tank or heal in this game.

That said I'm really with most of the people here, you haven't tried the high level stuff (which is what you need to do in WoW too) and you presume to pass judgement based on the system that you've seen so far.

Also, you seem to have forgotten what WoW once had a massive attunement system that required you to go through massive quest lines and boss kills to qualify for the next raid or dungeon.

All in all I'm quite happy with this game so far.

Malgus puts giant warnings on your screen and every boss emotes a mechanic prior to doing it. Not sure what you're point was.

My point was to recall deadly boss mod and as for warnings and emotes in TOR they are not so blatant as I descriped.

Also, you seem to have forgotten what WoW once had a massive attunement system that required you to go through massive quest lines and boss kills to qualify for the next raid or dungeon.

How much I miss those!!! It was best part of TBC and also the darkest days when pre-WotLK changes kicked in.

My point was to recall deadly boss mod and as for warnings and emotes in TOR they are not so blatant as I descriped.

 

 

How much I miss those!!! It was best part of TBC and also the darkest days when pre-WotLK changes kicked in.

It was also hated by the majority of the playerbase and made raids inaccessible to the majority of players.

Also, trash quality > quantity as a fundamental mechanic of encounter design is a matter of opinion, not fact.

And it would have been impossible for them to make the Darth Malgus mechanic any more transparent. There is literally a buff on the boss that tells you precisely what to do. My group had zero trouble whatsoever figuring it out our first time in there having never researched the fight at all.

Borderline unintutive is to spam AoE spells to decloak a boss who will otherwise 1-hit you out of thin air. Especially without a combat log or much in the way of visual clues, it's really difficulty for players to figure out what went wrong and why.

 

Even if you wanted, figuring out stuff yourself can be annoying because the game doesn't give you the necessary feedback to work with.

Aw, did HK beat you up? I agree a combat log would be excellent, but this is borderline crying.

Certainly unintuitive is to require multiple players to spam a knock-back ability within a limited time frame so that the boss can fall into the abyss the same way a villian did in a 30 year old movie. Yeah, it's cool and a nice homage but it's certainly not intuitive design. And since there are no real clear clues or implications beforehand, google is really the only alternative.

 

That my friends, is poor game design.

Step 1: Read the tooltips on the Bosses buffs.

Step 2: Know what to do.

Step 3: Profit.

Information is all around you, if you bother to look.

Aw, did HK beat you up? I agree a combat log would be excellent, but this is borderline crying.

 

Information is all around you, if you bother to look.

But it's not.

Yes, we died a few times to HK but not because we were doing it wrong, but rather because the game doesn't consider all AoE equal. Earthquake worked fine, but Force Sweep did not.

If everyone piles up, takes turns doing AoE and HK still instant-gibs someone you really want to know what's going wrong. But the game provides you with no tools or anything of the like to figure it out.

We killed him after 3 tries of doing EXACTLY the same thing. Why it worked the 3rd time and not the 1st or 2nd was beyond any of our comprehension.

I don't mind failing, but I need to know what went wrong!

I like where in one point (S)he complains about the amount of trash then in the very next he complains there so easy no heal or tank required..

which is it bucky to hard or to soft? makes a difference in many arenas......

I get the fact that most the "Heroics" are cookie cutter and as anyone knows that doesnt boad well for replay value as i have stated over and over and over again!

level one to 50 after that nothing but class quests will change..unless you switch factions..

This game seems rushed to market. no thought was actually put into the lore.

The "Social" points and aspect of this game...why? this is not facebook kiddies.

there is alot that needs tweaking alot that needs to be rethought. pvp is a good point of OVERHAUL required..

However i hate wow. i have multiple 85s was there from beta every one of them reached Gladiator in pvp. i can barely bring myself to enter pvp here its so bad..

The heroics are meh i love to quest and until i hit Belsavis there has been a huge Lack of Quests...Hoth being the worst planet in game up to this point for Questing. i think i left with 13 comendationd and 5-8 were from dead bodies meaning 5-8 quests in total on this planet..forget bonus there not actual quests.

I am with the 90% of the players the game as it is at the moment will not last long enough to worry about xpacs..

In the end its not hard to impliment the changes do it over time just assure us its being done.

But in the end Money Talks Bull---- Walks and guess what i have given a 4 month period then i walk away from this bs

It was also hated by the majority of the playerbase and made raids inaccessible to the majority of players.

 

Also, trash quality > quantity as a fundamental mechanic of encounter design is a matter of opinion, not fact.

 

And it would have been impossible for them to make the Darth Malgus mechanic any more transparent. There is literally a buff on the boss that tells you precisely what to do. My group had zero trouble whatsoever figuring it out our first time in there having never researched the fight at all.

Yes the attonement lines were hated by players in wrath! which is when they dropped it 3.4 to be exact.

why ? QQ its to hard, i dont want to travel around..same as the charger i worked my butt off to EARN in game now its handed to you.

thats is why wow is failing..go take a look wed there offline for another 3-4 hrs if they even finish on time which they havent 90% of the time.. tuesday is down day not wed thurs fri sat and every xpac or patch requires 3-4 days of maintenance or rolling restarts.

i am a beta player of wow 7 yrs paid game time multy 85s wow has gone down hill since 3.0

1. Accessibility: Mainly annoying for hard modes when someone has to do some dialog, then drop the quest so they can pick up the hard mode one. I'd also like to have a transport from the fleet to ilum so I don't have to do the whole ship loading to change planets.

2. I think they are decently varied. Not all flashpoints are on ships...

3. I don't think there are an excessive number of trash mobs. Do you just want to hop in an instance and fight 4 bosses in 20 minutes and leave?

4. Hard mode trash hits pretty hard. They are still pretty easy to get through since they don't really have a lot of HP and DPS can kill the weaker enemies quickly. But it's trash for a reason.

There are also mini-bosses in most instances that you have to kill to progress to the bosses that actually drop loot.

5. I think the fights are well designed. I'm trying to think of a boss (actual boss, not mini-boss) that is straight tank and spank (no adds or any other type of fight mechanic that needs to be done) and having trouble coming up with one (Last boss in battle for Ilum does some stuff but pretty much a normal fight).

The only thing that wasn't really intuitive would be the HK fight but when I looked it up it made a lot of sense. The malgus thing was pretty obviously...The not being able to damage him, the whole ROTJ feel, the room with a ton of edges to fall off, the debuff that makes him able to be knocked back.

Even if you wanted, figuring out stuff yourself can be annoying because the game doesn't give you the necessary feedback to work with.

 

You have to be a younger gamer. This sentence comes off extremely lazy. Games have way too much hand holding these days. Figuring things out shouldn't be annoying, it's part of the game. Pull the silver spoon out of your mouth and work to figure stuff out...game is really not that much of a brain twister.

But it's not.

 

Yes, we died a few times to HK but not because we were doing it wrong, but rather because the game doesn't consider all AoE equal. Earthquake worked fine, but Force Sweep did not.

 

If everyone piles up, takes turns doing AoE and HK still instant-gibs someone you really want to know what's going wrong. But the game provides you with no tools or anything of the like to figure it out.

 

We killed him after 3 tries of doing EXACTLY the same thing. Why it worked the 3rd time and not the 1st or 2nd was beyond any of our comprehension.

 

I don't mind failing, but I need to know what went wrong!

I dunno, he doesn't insta-gib anyone for me. But then again, I know as a healer I need to shield everyone when he cloaks up... Also - we don't have 11k hp because we actually spent time getting mods etc. to prepare for HMs.

Like I said before, if your gripe is with the bugginess - I get you. There are things that are frustrating bug wise in game, however so soon after release I can deal with it.

What I can't deal with is all you WoW-only kids who need your hands held through everything - and blaming "design" (Which no offense, you clearly are using this as a "keyword" that has very little to do with the reality of what your saying) for your woes.

I hate to be a trolol..

but..

L2P? ):

You have to be a younger gamer. This sentence comes off extremely lazy. Games have way too much hand holding these days. Figuring things out shouldn't be annoying, it's part of the game. Pull the silver spoon out of your mouth and work to figure stuff out...game is really not that much of a brain twister.

Amen.

I agree with everything the OP said except accessibility. I simply haven't had a problem there.

The insights into dungeon design are very good imo, they represent what I felt was wrong with flashpoints exactly. Trash is boring, the repetitive visuals are killing me, and the bosses are all so obvious.

Having mobs do lesser versions of a boss' ability is a good way to give players hints ahead of time so the bosses don't have to be so obvious. Nearly all of the bosses in Flashpoints are instantly forgettable imo. More pressure needs to be put on the players.

Good post OP.