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The major flaws of Star Wars Galaxies.....
Pachelbel
Member Posts: 37
I am a veteran of SWG. I have been playing since launch, and I beta tested it in the final beta. I've seen ups and downs, but I must say, I'm vexxed and frustrated at what I see going on now, and I ask that at least one dev take the time to read my issues. I also hope that no one will ruin this thread by flaming or generally acting like an idiot.
Still, I have a lot of issues here, and I think I echo the sentiments of a lot of us. So I'm posting this in the hopes that we can get some information...something more than "it will be fixed sometime down the road".
So this is my honest assessment of SWG (trying to be as objective as possible). As you're reading, please keep a little voice in your head repeating "risk vs. reward", because this is what my issues mostly boil down to.
SWG is currently the most advanced and complex mainstream MMO on the market. The tools it gives us are remarkable...player cities, advanced crafting and marketing are just a few to say the least. We have INCREDIBLE tools at our disposal to do some really cool things and really cool RP ideas. We have the ability to raise in rank in the rebel or imperial army. We can buy faction bases, we can hunt, we can go get things and stuff.
So what's the problem?
The problem is that there is simply no impetus to actually DO any of these things. There is in fact very little impetus to do anything in the game. Once one has learned all of these cool tools, it becomes painfully obvious that they are just that...tools in a fairly sterile world. And what's worse? Many of the publishes we've gotten, and some that are on the way do nothing whatsoever to alleviate this fact. Just more tweaks to the "engine", but still...no impetus.
If I'm not explaining myself well, let me give some concrete examples.
-There is no benefit to putting all of the effort into getting a faction base. In fact, one gets a faction base...in the hopes of it getting attacked so there's some action. That's like buying a car hoping it can get stolen so you can beat up the guy who tried to steal it. Risk vs. reward? All risk, no reward. There is no reason to get a faction base except in the hopes that it gets attacked. On a related note, there is no reason to go up in rank (unless you're imperial and want to avoid scans)
-The "Imperial Crackdown". Here is a great example. We have an idea that is "cool", but functionally restrictive and generally just not fun. What the imperial crackdown has meant to me is that I now simply avoid the cities that are patrolled. That's not "fun" for me. It didn't add any new play elements to me except that now I'm restricted which cities I go to. Now I suppose I could just go to those cities, but here we are again...risk vs. reward. The only reason I would go to those cities would be just to skirt trouble. There's no reward for me to do so, and the best I can hope for is that NOTHING happens to me. So while it may seem "cool" that stormtroopers fine you now, there's nothing fun at all about the imp crackdown.
-"Droid Invasion". Again, we have months of talking about how great droids will be, and after two publishes and essentially 3 months worth of development, we now have droids that tell us what swgcraft.com has been telling us for months, and maintenance droids. How many people like combat droids better than the old ones? Again, new tools...not much reason to use them.
-The Corvette, the Deathwatch Bunker. Perfect example of risk vs. reward. I'm all for having more difficult things to do. However, I'd like a reason to do it. I'm not exaggerating when I say I went to the Corvette 6 times and all I got was a lousy t-shirt. I paid close attention...I went through 200k worth of armor in those times. And I'm not kidding, the only thing I've gotten is a rebel t-shirt and an av-21 schematic. Now I'm not asking for uber-loot. I'm just asking for a reason to go back. Because...well...there is no reason to go back. However, I got plenty of garbage E-11s and LLCs from those loot containers. Why not make them some interesting trinket or tchotchke? Is that so difficult or game killing? I'd say maybe this is a database issue, but then why have all the completely worthless loot like LLCs? As for the DWB...well...I'm just not going. From what I hear, it would take a group of 20...AT LEAST...to finish this bunker, and there's VERY little loot or anything to get from it. I'm the guy who does NOT steal loot, and usually will let everyone else loot before I take my share. Considering very little drops there, and what does drop is mostly useful to a limited crowd (razor knucklers for instance), and considering actually finishing this dungeon means getting a set of mando armor for the maybe 3 people on my server who have a full set of BH armor, I just don't see any reward for my risk.
Do you see what I'm getting at? This is endemic throughout the game. There is very little reward with most things in the game vs. the risk. And I don't think the devs understand that. The general feeling seems to be "if you put the tools there, they will RP and love it". Well that's wrong. Without a reason to do these things, SWG is little more than a stage for a bunch of actors to do pointless things. I suppose that wouldn't be so bad, except that many money sinks are in place that make more "work" to do these things that are supposed to be "fun". For instance, I went through 200k worth of armor doing the Corvette. That means if I want to do the Corvette again I need to grind the money for a new set of armor...probably several hours worth of grinding, and that's not including stims, petstims, buffs, etc. I also need to go back and find the ticket for the Corvette.
Same with faction bases. I suppose it would be fun to defend a faction base. But do I want to spend a month straight grinding FP just so I can have a little bit of fun defending it? Not really. I'd rather play Rainbow Six if I want to play "just to play".
Jedi is the ultimate manifestation of risk vs. reward...there's not a whole lot of reward to getting that right now. "But there's a jedi revamp coming up" you say. Well I have some things to say about that, too.
First off, the devs have stated repeatedly that the number of jedi in the game is supposed to be low. Now we have two full publishes devoted strictly to jedi. Does that mean that officially this is what we should all eventually migrate to? What if we don't want to become jedi? Should we just hope that someday you decide to make the game more fun for us? I'd like an official position on this, because for a profession that was supposed to be rare, it seems like a tremendous amount of effort is being put into it. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those "continuity sticklers"...I'm just out to have fun. However, the amount of effort put into the jedi revamp is incongruent with what we've seen and heard up until now. I'd like to know whether we should now just all become jedi since that seems to be what's going to get all of the development time (along with JTL).
Secondly, I don't like the idea of forcing voting and PvP to raise in the ranks of jedi. Again, it sounds "cool", but please PLEASE think this through. What will inevitably happen is one or a few guilds or people will dominate the ranks permanently. Again, it will not be "fun". And more importantly, even if it IS fun, it's fun for a VERY select few. There's about 200,000 other people who are not jedi who'd like to see some changes. But again, I pose the question: Should we all basically try to become jedi?
I've posed quite a few complaints. Now I'll pose where I think the process can be fixed.
1.Change your development style to ALWAYS weigh risk vs. reward when adding something. Unless we're talking about a nerf...and I will be the first to get hit with a nerf bat, I completely understand the necessity of nerfs...otherwise weigh whether there is a reason to do something. Faction bases? How about they confer some sort of bonus for running them? DWB? Corvette? Have them drop lots and lots of non-game killing loot. I mean cool stuff like a tusken helmet type thing...something useless but neat. In all honesty I LIKE the tshirt I got, but not enough to ever EVER warrant going back to the Corvette. Oh, and while I understand the idea behind making you be overt to wear the tshirt, again we have a risk vs. reward situation. There is no reason anyone would ever wear it...who would be overt running around without armor? Tshirt type loot good. Overt tshirt type loot bad.
2.Think about how many people will truly be affected by a change. For instance, would digital actors really make the game more fun? I don't think so, for the simple fact that I doubt you're going to hire even 1 actor per server, and that actor can't be everywhere at once all the time. Which means I doubt more than 1 in a 1000 players will experience this, if even that. And furthermore, it's not a play addition, just more window dressing. In general though, I think this is a problem the devs have with triaging. I'm a senior QA Engineer at a very high profile company. While triaging bugs is not necessarilly easy, sometimes I really wonder who made the decisions to prioritize what bug/issue. I would love it if your bug database was made public, but we all know that won't happen, so please, try to get better at it. I'm also happy to help if you do need any advice in private :-)
3.Communication. This is KEY. So much so that I'm dividing this into three categories. I'm sorry guys, I tried to give you a chance. But communication has gotten WAY worse since the "forum revamp" back in January. I am always confused where to get new information, what's coming, etc. When I look at dev tracker I inevitably have to sift through several messages that are in the middle of a 1000 post thread. I'm sorry, I simply don't have all day every day to find out what's going on. At least when "SWG Discussion" was open, there was a centralized place for finding information. The fact that I'm not even sure where to post this so that it will be both in an appropriate place and get maximum coverage after 6 months should say something. And I'm on the forums a LOT.
Perhaps even some sort of a daily or weekly dev diary. I realize you guys are busy, but then again, this is crucial. You need to take a half hour out of your week to let us know what's going on.
4.Stop setting expectations. This only hurts you. You guys played up the Imperial Crackdud and Dud Invasion so much, there was NO way it could live up to anyone's expectations. That's simply bad. Stop setting ridiculously high expectations, because eventually we're just going to give up on you.
5.Be honest, and don't act like we don't know what we're talking about, and stop giving us the "it will be fixed in the X revamp" line. If it will be fixed in the X revamp, then tell us HOW it will be fixed in the X revamp. If you don't know how, then tell us what problems you are running into. Guess what, we JUST might be able to give you a hand with this.
IN OTHER WORDS, STOP GIVING US MARKETING TALK. I shudder to think what will happen if JTL doesn't live up to expectations that have been set. As it is, MANY people are disappointed at the VERY recent revelation that there will be no more new planets in JTL. This is something that we all should have known about a long time ago.
Give us impetus to do things. Give us reasons to go somewhere. Program in hundreds of badges if you need to. Things like "Killed 1000 meatlumps", things like that. You'd be suprised how many people will do boring repetitive tasks for something as simple as this. But as it is, there's NO impetus.
As it is, if I want really any loot, I can just go to the jinta caves and camp there for a while. Personally, I'd rather work for my loot, and more importantly have the amount of work I put in be commensurate with what I get out of it.
If I think of anything else, I'll post it. But please keep this thread nice. I'd like to not have it deleted or locked immediately.
P.S. As I posted this, the post was eaten by the forums. So I just remembered my other issue. Fix the forums. There's no excuse now. It's been a year and the forums work in some ways worse than before. I don't understand this. I've never had a problem with forums before, yet these never work. Problems from horrible performance to inability to log in to posts getting eaten. There is no excuse. You guys are Sony. You should be able to call up Lithium and say "fix this. now. or we're pulling our account". You, SOE, are the customer of Lithium. You should not be accepting this performance. But what's worse is Lithium's performance reflects badly towards your customers. It also looks very bad when the perception is that you can't even fix forums...something that has been around since the dawn of the Internet. This is not a knock on you, I'm just saying it looks bad for you, so it's in your best interest to fix it.
Comments
The biggest flaw of SWG is being able to become a Jedi. SOE should not let people become a Jedi. Most peopl are actually AFK grind to finish their holo grind. This just anoy the hell out of me. They need to find a way for people to actually play the game instead AFK most of the time. Make people go out raid more PvP more. Add more interesting quest.
Star Wars Galaxies:Jump to light speed going to be awesome and it will help make SWG much better.
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"For one who seeks what he cannot obtain suffers torture; one who has what is not desirable is cheated; and one who does not seek what is worth seeking is diseased." - Augustine of Hippo
I did the beta test and tried it for 3 months and retried this spring, my opinions haven't changed. They tried to be original, which should of been a good idea, but they seemed to of destroyed all the things I like about these games to do so.
Single character servers: I know that due to their horrible database design that they had no choice, even with 1 character per server the database is unstable as heck. But I like to try averything and see friends doing the same.
Too much dependance on crafting, which led to unreasonable rates of decay on objects, no loot on mobs etc. Crafters I knew were not happy either because there was too much competition and with factories and things, no real need for dozens of crafters per server.
Fatigue and damages which existed only to give useless classes a reason to exist, while ruining it for adventurers.
These are the main reasons I quit, and of the 20+ people I knew who were playing, all have quit too. I really have to smile at those who say: wait till the space expansion.... Why would the devs be able to make that work any better ???
Sorry that I will always be very hard on SWG, it should of been the greatest MMORPG of all time, instead it is another niche game ......
I completely agree with the above post. Also I'm quite angry at the lack of screaming about no new planets being added. Are we so used to being disappointed that we simply shrug our shoulders when JTL details was announced ? When I bring it up I get flamed by fanboys or dumb comments like "its a space expansion, why would you expect planets ?"
Hell, at this point I'd be happy with a min expansion that adds text to the jawas at their fortress, text to the ewoks at their tree village, fix the gungan theme park, etc. So much potential content sigh...
I think the 'problem' alot of people had with SWG was that it left the player to decide for themselves what to do with their in game time.
That suits me fine, but if you are the type that needs the game to set you goals/tasks constantly then you will probably be disapointed.
Regarding the faction base example in the first post - the base _is_ the reward you bought with all the factions points - what you do with the base is up to you.
If you want action you probably need to let the opposing faction know that you now have a base and where to find it - those things dont advertise themselves you know (I suspect however that you would shortly be back here complaining about all those faction points wastred once it was destroyed - thats not a dig, just an expectation)
SWG lets you play the game your way, and it shows that alot of us cant make up our own minds and need to be constantly told what to do with our [virtual] lives
In all MMORPG you have to set your own goals and decide whay you will do. Most of the people I knew in the game, came from other MMORPG where the fun they had was measured in years.
I agree that a lot of Star Wars fans who never played any MMORPG may have had this problem. But strangly enough, the only people I knew who played more than 3 months were newbies. The veterans found the game dull as heck.
I will probably retry after the next few patches depending on what I hear, but I feel that this will remain a niche game, when it had the potential of being the greatest MMORPG ever.
I'd have to disagree, in every other MMORPG I've played there was a need to 'do something'... level up in some fashion and/or NPC-bash (and these 2 may be one and the same). SWG doesnt give the player a _need_ to do thins (many still feel they _must_ do this however), this can leave players feeling the game is shallow or boring since the 'monster bashing' is not the primary focus of the game (and thus other 'content' is overlooked because they are not interested in that)
What I'd be interested to know is _how_ you thought it could have been the best game ever? What would be different?
I'll wager your expectations are/were based around a single game-play element (e.g. PvP) or small subset of elements which you would have had the game focus on to the exclusion/detriment of everything else (this is not a dig at you). The problem is that this approach also makes it a niche title, just a different kind of niche (possibly a more popular niche but a niche nonetheless)
I agree with everything said.
I alos biytch slaped a Emperial solider (dudes in white . . .stormtroopers right?) and I got instantly KO'ed (like a death touch out of nowhere) and I got fined.
You know this game reminds me of the first Epsiode I game for playstation that was 2 players. I rented that game back then and it was pretty awsome.
-In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08-
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RISING DRAGOON ~AION US ONLINE LEGION for Elyos
I fully agree. Players who specifically like PvP, or specifically like leveling up, getting uber loot, reaching "end game" need to learn how to think outside of the box. Especially from a buisness perspective. A nitch game will not be supersuccessful. A game that has as many playstyle choices for players will in the long run do better. If a player gets tired of being a merchant they can be a musician. Then be a miner, then a doctor, then a bounty hunter, then an architect. Etc.. etc...
Compare to ......... EQ (and other games) in which all players and characters do the exact same thing. Kill kill and kill while you are a hobbit, elf, troll, etc... ALL players must do the exact same thing. There is no choice. Want to craft? Must get the componets by .... killing, aka being an uber warrior in order to kill the higher level monsters.
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MMORPG games I've played:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
Star Wars Galaxies:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/capt_xplororor
More games:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
Hi All! I'm new to SWG as I started a few days ago. I wandered onto this thread out of curiosity about the game itself and to see what opinions were before I purchase the game.
SWG is a great game but yes its lacking the impetus to keep players moving ahead. The proffesions are restrictive in a sense that you can only go so far in one field and after that then what? And I agree with the very first post. If you don't have a reason to do something then why bother? I thought that SWG would offer much,much more than I have seen in other games and it does in alot of areas. The planets are huge landmass wise and theres lots of stuff to do if.... you like killing things. Like I said,I'm a noob,so I think that I have barely seen that rest of the iceberg but what I found interesting was the seemingly small amounts of players that I have come across. With such a huge playerbase I expected to see alot of the major cities packed with players. It could have been the server I was on or the time of day but I just found it very odd...
The Risk vs Reward aspect has basically thrown a wrench into my hopes for the game. I really wanted to see how good SWG is but hey,forewarned is forearmed right?
I dunno...Ill give SWG a go for the next 2 weeks. Thanks for the info guys!
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MMORPG games I've played:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
Star Wars Galaxies:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/capt_xplororor
More games:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
Botton line - you cant please everyone all the time
Initially SWG _did_ have risk vs reward (of a fashion). PvP deaths resulted in equipment decay (even if insured) as risk and faction point gain as reward - players complained and the decay in PvP was removed (the faction point gain remains)
The problem here is "What do you actually want?" - I suspect some people want corpse looting as the risk/reward but I think I can say for sure that this will _never_ happen (SWG went out of its way to be anti-grief and taking away everything a person has is pretty major)
I believe that the diverse opinion of what players want for risk vs reward is why the system wont change massively and why lots of PvP players will never be happy with it
Why don't you answer the original post Xplororor? On every other forum you attack those who criticise your beloved SWG, but here at last is an articulate post that really nails the problems with this pitiful game and you ignore it and answer later posts. Your response? Also the comment that SWG has the most player options is totally fatuous when 95% of them are pointless. I really don't want my character to spend 10 hours dancing in a cantina thanks very much...
M.
Well i finally did the vette last night...i expected scenes to be recreated from the openning of the star wars film...as the corvette was described by SOE....what i found was...
The same 5 foot wide corridors where 11 people stood within a metre of a mob pummeling it for ten minutes.
The combat in this game to me is really crap. Asking an old eq player if eq was like this he said "yes and was even worse against the dragons"
For anyone wanting to see how group combat should be done try daoc.....where you can actually see the diff when a profession comes into play.
Combat in swg is god awful...
Pan
Pan
sooooooo True .. Swg could be a so nice game, Risk vs reward is the real fact, I tried swg 3 time, never been able to play more than 3month in all these 3 time, one of the last time, I stayed for 1 week. It's was always the same thing, Farming money, running everywhere, after 3 hour of running a bike on Talus, or Naboo, you feel you done nothing, and stop. They should make : Event with reward, make some loot, put quest that's raise stats (could be awesome), and some kind of stuff like this.
I really appreciate my last idea, You do a very long quest, pretty difficult, but, in the end, maybe your character got his way to think change, or he work so much, that his body improve ... something like this, Permanent increase. Some stuff like this could give some more life to the game. Maybe we should try to make a list of idea and send them to SoE .. saying, we want you to make the game better, we got hope in you
While I can see _why_ you are saying what you are saying I'd be interested to know _how_ you would have preferred it to have been
Ultimately every MMORPG developer resorts to 'uber defence and massive hit points' in an attempt to give the 'end game' players a challenge/something to do
If you _werent_ pounding on a MOB for 5 mins I suspect you'd be here telling us how the Corvette is too easy and therefore sucks (btw the corvette has a time limit on it - the point _isnt_ to kill everything on the ship that moves......)
While I can see _why_ you are saying what you are saying I'd be interested to know _how_ you would have preferred it to have been
Ultimately every MMORPG developer resorts to 'uber defence and massive hit points' in an attempt to give the 'end game' players a challenge/something to do
If you _werent_ pounding on a MOB for 5 mins I suspect you'd be here telling us how the Corvette is too easy and therefore sucks (btw the corvette has a time limit on it - the point _isnt_ to kill everything on the ship that moves......)
Well consider this...
With each mob attacked....
No specials stuck....apart from one kd....no poisions stuck from our master cm, the tka master did his whirling dervish dance with no regard for stamina or endurance. The master pistoleer did nothing apart from look pretty, my llc hit, hit...miss, miss :P....swordsman....more of spamming attacks
I could understand (just about) a lengthy battle against one mob if it didn't turn into a slogathon and some teeniest bit of stratedgy come into play.
Incorporate some stratedgy....tanks like swordsman hold aggro cm's and commados do DOT attacks, anyone with a kd suppress mobs....actually give doc's other things to do than just buff at starports :P
I clicked single 2 llc attack 30 times, went downstairs to grab a beer and came back up to find group still there fighting the same droid...
try that on daoc
Pan
Pan
So how would you make the vette mobs difficult without having high HAMs and resists? If you want the AI to somehow out-wit you that's probably not going to happen. Unfortunately without having some sort of "memory" to draw on past battles and the ability to reason AI just isn't going to be able to be to out-wit you.
So without writing reasoning AI and without saying "try that on daoc" tell us how you want the MOBs to be difficult. If all you say is "try that on daoc" that tells people nothing. What makes the daoc MOBs harder?
Until you cancel your subscription, you are only helping to continue the cycle of mediocrity.
try that on daoc
Pan
DAoC was intended to center around PvP. That is the target market for DAoC. If in SWG you find fighting monsters too easy, then go declare yourself an Overt Imperial or Rebel, and let the fun begin. Go play on an unofficial PvP server and let the fun really begin. In SWG PvP you are safe nowhere. You talk the talk, now walk the walk. In ALL computer games human opponets will always be harder to kill than computer AI opponets/MOBs/Monsters. Including in DAoC *cough* can you say 'bots* now that's something you won't find in SWG
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MMORPG games I've played:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
Star Wars Galaxies:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/capt_xplororor
More games:
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http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
Pan
Pan
Pan
Ok, so what I think youre saying is that the high end MOBs immunity to [some/all] specials make tactics and group profession composition irrelevant.
and you may have a point there
But as soon as you get dizzy to stick and then get a knockdown or posture change to stick the combat might as well be all over (and to a lesser degree bleeds - although there is a solid reason behind bleeds not effecting some MOBs - such as droids) - the MOB has to be made immune to those [overpowered?] specials for the same reason it has to be given massive HAM and resists
Which brings us right back to the fact that its either easy (TKA with master doc buffs soloing enraged Rancor missions) or hard (Corvette and DeathWatch) but always possible (assuming correct skill levels etc)
I'll just say it again though - The point of the Corvette/DeathWatch _isnt_ to just kill everything you come across (thus you need tactics to achieve your objective.......just not always combat tactics)