For me. It is definitly the water. All this water and it does not even go higher than waist height. I mean really, Swimming would have been awesome. Having cool little places to explore down in a lake like the Gungan city. Water is a huge part of Star Wars and it has just been utterly brutalized in this game. RIP in piece Micheal Phelps. You are not welcome here.

Now let's here yours.

That's a tough question. I'll go with enemies not raising an alarm or showing any interest at all when I slaughter their friends 20 metres away from them.

Enemies respawning where I can see them or even right on top of me is also near the top of the list.

For me. It is definitly the water. All this water and it does not even go higher than waist height. I mean really, Swimming would have been awesome. Having cool little places to explore down in a lake like the Gungan city. Water is a huge part of Star Wars and it has just been utterly brutalized in this game. RIP in piece Micheal Phelps. You are not welcome here.

 

Now let's here yours.

They have previously stated that the current game engine cannot handle under-water exploration. I believe they originally said they didn't want swimming in the game anyway. Just because other newer games have swimming does not mean it's needed. This is a story driven MMO, not so much an exploration MMO.

To the topic at hand... the most immersion breaking thing for me would have to be... well, I can't think of anything to be honest ha ha. I could say exhaustion zones, especially on planets like Tatooine, but to understand he need for them and the fact that this is not a sandbox style MMO makes that point redundant. So for the time being I don't really have anything that is immersion breaking.

That's a tough question. I'll go with enemies not raising an alarm or showing any interest at all when I slaughter their friends 20 metres away from them.

 

Enemies respawning where I can see them or even right on top of me is also near the top of the list.

You'll get that in any MMO though. If they changed the agro distance then far too many people would be complaining about that.

Lack of environmental Sound for me.

When I am up on the canyons on tattooine of high in alderman mountains some wind sounds would be a great way to feel the ambiance. With out the sound of wind it just feels stale and lifeless.

On the other hand when in have my surround sound on when on Taris the sounds in the background are great

I am all for the adaptive armor that has been released. It is so much better than the original system in 2012, when everyone looked the same.

Still, sometimes on Fleet, I think they've gone too far with the skimpy armor lately. It just looks trashy, too often. It doesn't look like Star Wars at all.

I still see plenty of NPC sets in-game that haven't been released. Why not make more of those adaptive instead cutting out half of Thana Vesh's armor, which had great design. Dramatic extrovert? Wha?

You'll get that in any MMO though. If they changed the agro distance then far too many people would be complaining about that.

And it's equally immersion-breaking in any MMO. I have a hard time imagining a world where non-sentients and sentients alike are so utterly stupid that they just stand around waiting to be slaughtered, and do not help each other when the inevitable happens.

In fact, the almost complete lack of ambient activity is also a close one. There are a few guards following a set route, but mostly everyone is standing still, repeating the same gestures. And no, adding more players to the planets won't help, because players don't do the mundane things that make a city feel alive.

Yes, that is another thing that's present in all other MMOs as well. But this thread wasn't about comparing MMOs, it was about immersion-breaking things. In other words, things that make the world feel unrealistic.

Mob density and poor mob AI.

I find it really immersion breaking to be slaughtering a group of mobs while another group of their friends / allys stands impassively in direct line of sight just a few metres away. At very least these mobs should adopt a defensive / alerted posture (I realise there's gameplay reasons not to just have them add on you). Many MMOs suffer this design problem of course, but it seems worse in this game because of the way most planets are designed like corridors.

Also mob AI in general is very poor. It is completely scripted and predictable. So every time you fight a mob of a certain type you know EXACTLY how the fight will go, what ability will be used and when. There's no variety, no random factor, no tactics employed.

For me. It is definitly the water. All this water and it does not even go higher than waist height. I mean really, Swimming would have been awesome. Having cool little places to explore down in a lake like the Gungan city. Water is a huge part of Star Wars and it has just been utterly brutalized in this game. RIP in piece Micheal Phelps. You are not welcome here.

 

Now let's here yours.

The other players.

That's a tough question. I'll go with enemies not raising an alarm or showing any interest at all when I slaughter their friends 20 metres away from them.

 

Enemies respawning where I can see them or even right on top of me is also near the top of the list.

This is mine too. Fighting a mob , and having a droid just stroll by without taking notice is odd.

general chat - especially since f2p came in

That's easy... turn it off. The game is much better without genchat. However, WZ whiners and complainists can't be ignored so easily.

Cantina ...

Im so frustrated about the cantinas. I enjoyed KOTOR`s crowded cantinas (remember the Calo Nord and the pazaak players), but here ... everything is empty and depressing. There are cantinas all over the world of SWTOR , but nobody is in there. Cant you put some dancing and drinking NPCs ? I want to relax and enjoy the music and the atmosphere in the cantina while I have a drink, but its so scary. Like a ghost town.

The canned story.

What genius came up with the idea to have every person in the universe the Chosen One? All that time and effort spent designing a story that every person must pretend does not exist, or the universe does not make any sense.

PS: Oh, I just found some pictures of one half-crowded cantina . Can you tell me where it is? On which planet?

http://kenminjia.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/swtor-2011-11-20-16-57-44-01.jpg

http://thecantinablog.com/wp-content/gallery/swtor-beta/swtor-2011-11-27-22-33-43-37.jpg

PS: Oh, I just found some pictures of one half-crowded cantina . Can you tell me where it is? On which planet?

http://kenminjia.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/swtor-2011-11-20-16-57-44-01.jpg

http://thecantinablog.com/wp-content/gallery/swtor-beta/swtor-2011-11-27-22-33-43-37.jpg

Is that Hutta?

PS: Oh, I just found some pictures of one half-crowded cantina . Can you tell me where it is? On which planet?

http://kenminjia.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/swtor-2011-11-20-16-57-44-01.jpg

http://thecantinablog.com/wp-content/gallery/swtor-beta/swtor-2011-11-27-22-33-43-37.jpg

Hutta

PS: Oh, I just found some pictures of one half-crowded cantina . Can you tell me where it is? On which planet?

http://kenminjia.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/swtor-2011-11-20-16-57-44-01.jpg

http://thecantinablog.com/wp-content/gallery/swtor-beta/swtor-2011-11-27-22-33-43-37.jpg

That's priceless... a Wookie ripping the droids arms' out of socket.

The engine of the game is among the worst I've seen.

It's the most game breaking, lol.

That's a tough question. I'll go with enemies not raising an alarm or showing any interest at all when I slaughter their friends 20 metres away from them.

That annoys you, but you're fine with the maximum range of a sniper rifle being 30m? I can throw a rock 30m, and I can't even use the Force.

And no, I'm not complaining about attack ranges. The point here is that distances in the game are abstractions. People complain about speeders being too slow, because it takes 3 seconds to go 30m. Well, think about it this way: It takes 3 seconds to go the distance of a sniper rifle shot. Of course, then you have the issue of force users being able to jump or project lightning to the maximum effective distance of a sniper rifle. And the total weirdness of some joker being able to pull off the same range and accuracy while dual-wielding pistols.

It's all weird. There's no good way of solving this problem, and virtually every game of any similar genre has this problem. Even the almighty Skyrim has some form of this.

So, yes, there is some weirdness in agro ranges. However, considering that characters in the game make it clear that the distances are drastically condensed, I find the agro range far less silly than the various ability distances. And yet, I find none of it "immersion breaking". I'd actually find it much worse if the map scale was totally realistic.

That said, to contribute my own most-immersion-breaking thing:

In the Republic a "squad" is two people. This is actually reinforced a couple places. As a Trooper, people repeatedly refer to you and your companion as Havoc Squad. I could wave that off as being an abstraction, but as an Empire player, you face off against a Jedi and Tempest Squad. Tempest Squad is literally (and I mean literally literally, not the figurative literally that everyone else uses) two guys. Again, as a Warrior, you end up facing off against "two squads of the Republic's finest". It's four soldiers. This makes formation commands stupid: "Form up!" Well, its just the two of, so... "Attack Formation!" Uh... is that side by side or one in front of the other? What other formations would their be? "Squad, move out!" Again... its just the two of us. You could have just said: "Sergeant, we're leaving."

They have previously stated that the current game engine cannot handle under-water exploration.

This thread ain't about explanations.

To the topic at hand

Arbitrary limitations, e.g., all tech weapons for all characters and the various lightsaber restrictions for Force users.

What genius came up with the idea to have every person in the universe the Chosen One?

Almost every RPG designer ever?

Bioware actually made a game where the main character was not the one person who controlled the fate of the world. It was called Dragon Age II, and loads of people hated it because... they weren't the Chosen One and couldn't drastically change how the story ended.

All that time and effort spent designing a story that every person must pretend does not exist, or the universe does not make any sense.

Actually, a lot of the stories do overlap and compliment each other. Specifically, the Knight and Consular stories mesh well, as do the Knight and Warrior stories. The Makeb storyline for both factions work together. Of course, there are some conflicts (Corellia, Ilum, a bunch of flashpoints)

Or are you complaining about every Bounty Hunter joining the Great Hunt and being antagonized by Tarro Blood? Or the thousands of apprentices that beat Vemrin for Baras' favor?

Seeing a roaming gold mob coming closer during a fight, and my health is low, so I quickly finish the fight and wait to see if the gold mob is going to attack, and ... my companion trots next to the gold mob on the way back to me. Lol. I understand that my character didn't trigger the mob into attacking, still, it just looks odd.

How nobody batted an eye at Khem Val's gi-normous, loin cloth wearing self. I expected every NPC convo to start with a scream of surprise, or terror, after I got Khem. Instead, nothing. I got more reaction from NPCs for my Bounty Hunter being Chiss. For a while, I thought Khem was invisible to most NPCs because of their lack of reaction. I kept wanting a, "can't you see him?" convo option.

How nobody batted an eye at Khem Val's gi-normous, loin cloth wearing self. I expected every NPC convo to start with a scream of surprise, or terror, after I got Khem. Instead, nothing. I got more reaction from NPCs for my Bounty Hunter being Chiss. For a while, I thought Khem was invisible to most NPCs because of their lack of reaction. I kept wanting a, "can't you see him?" convo option.

Khem has a very friendly face.

The other players.

This...by a mile. Or a hundred miles. Whatever's in second place, it's an extremely distant second.