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Open letter to BioWare
Deewe
Member UncommonPosts: 1,980
Dear BioWare designers and decisions makers,
as much as I'm a SW and a MMO fan I sit here, taking the time to write a wall of text instead of actually playing your game.
I listened some of the guild summit live stream, read the rest and to be honest you have me worried. Far from delusional, I know this post is only one voice among hundreds of thousands, still I do hope it would somehow be this little spark igniting something in the right place and people.
Before we actually dive in, please let me specify the goal here isn't to hurt anyone's feelings nor rant the game but give a fair and honest feedback, feedback based on my own perceptions.
Going back from October 2008 to now and trying to have a look at the game and its evolution in general, I have the feeling you had (and still have) great design ideas that, I don't know why, you keep butchering with either really poor implementation, or last minute calls ruining them.
I'll take a few example, mind you:
[Two opposed factions]
The game was designed and advertised around 2 opposed factions.
Now, encountering population balance issues, especially in PvP, you find nothing else than adding same faction vs same faction battlegrounds.
Not only you are going against one of the core design of the game but also you are, by the same way hurting the feeling of belonging to a specific faction for the players.
If you remember well, Blizzard designers, been hammering how players felt attached to their own faction. Dividing players in two factions helped players feel like they are part of a group, especially on PvP servers.
Without going into much extend, I can tell you the same faction vs the same faction mechanic will, in the long term, bring more issues than else and it won't fix the population balance at all either. Also while you can certainly justify it with a good story it won't hold long when players will find themselves fighting more their own faction than the other.
In short the plaster will make us bleed more.
[World PvP]
I'm not very fond of PvP as I always roll on a RP server, still naming some servers PvP is a sad joke to people who like it. One instanced planet isn't world PvP.
By design you prevented all players to go on too many of the opponent faction planets. Now your answer to PvP is add more warzones and later on planet(s). Whatever good they are, warzones gets boring, even if they are as large as planets. PvPers wants to experience the thrill of venturing in a dangerous world. Not gather in specific instances.
You obviously can't remove the PvP server naming. So let players access to all planets and level their characters by PvPing from 1 to 50. You don't even need to add hours long story based quests to justify this. All PvPers would be more than happy to eat any, even text based mission, that allows them to sneak past the opponent planet defense and land on it to confront the enemy.
Please note that I never said PKing. We both know you can implement real world PvP and prevent it.
[Huttball]
The concept is fun, seriously it is even if there are a bit too much CC in it.
However while I'm not a lore freak, aren't Jedi supposed to be more than glowbats wielders? Because, let's be honest here, all the epicness of yielding a personally crafted Lightsaber and being a guardian of the force hits the dust the second you enter the arena. So much for trying to make the Light sided Jedi feel heroic. And personally I don't see Vader nor Palpatine doing it either.
Supposedly you guys, told us the Huttball would help mitigating the population imbalance.
For a game based on story and iconic characters and classes, do you really feel it was worth it butchering this feeling for this? I don't.
Now, would you have kept Huttball for non force users and created another force based contest like for the Jedi and Sith that would have been another story.
[Crystal color restrictions]
So at first you restricted the colors and now you open the valves.
Aren't the classes supposed to be iconic, are they?
Speaking of the lore there was a few exception with cross alignment crystals. But
red is one of the most iconic color in SW for LS.
What you should have done is indeed allow ranged weapons to use any color but the LS crystals should have been very rare and hard to get unlocks... if ever.
[Legacy names]
Too many players don't want to share any legacy or not name, ties... name it between some of their characters.
There's this very simple request to have a last name, still you oblige players to have all their characters to have the exact same surname or title. BTW yes people knows they aren't obliged to display them, so?
I'm going to be blunt here. What aren't you understanding in the above request? Or should I say in what does that annoys you so much that you don't implement it, on top of the legacy name? Is that too much to ask?
That's a simple and quick fix that would make, you know, players happy.
[Legacy abilities unlock]
Can you explain to us what blood/ties my Sith Warrior shares with my Mirialan Smuggler so he can now force choke other?
It doesn't work and it makes having these powers on the default classes seen as less epic.
Now, as suggested by others, would you restrict the powers by force or non force users that would be more acceptable and I dare saying more widely accepted. A dark side oriented Jedi lightning an opponent or an IA nuts kicking someone would make sense.
[Legacy specie unlock]
If we played a [insert_class name] do you really think players wants to roll a character of another class with the exact same specie?
How fun is that?
Also for the players who already have alts before the available species. Do you really think they'll appreciate being obliged to delete and reroll them to get the new combo? How rewarding is that?
Specie changes should be added in.
[Legacy mail]
Can I ask what's the point of having a mail box in the space ship when we can't recall to the ship and have to almost always pass by one to get to it?
With the GTN and the sell repair droid coming next you don't have anymore the excuse of using them as incentives for socialization as we will be able to use them hidden in our space ships.
So why don't we directly get access tot the email and GTN from our datapads. Can't we already send/receive 3D holocom from anywhere? It's just a step below.
While you're at it how about making companions more worthy like moving items between us and the space ship and having SW UPS deliver items from/to our space ships.
[Hue colors]
Soon we'll be able to unify our gear. That's a great new but a good concept, on paper only.
Character's will end as twins even more. At least we'll match now.
The Unify gear color is a great concept but it only works as a topping. Not a topping of moddable gear but a topping of gear dyes.
The first step should have been to add gear dyes in the game not twins mode.
[Gear mods]
Let's start with this statement: managing gear mods, with its current implementation is tedious. It's even worse when you starts comparing mods between all your characters and associated companions. So much that you need a piece of paper to do so. The UI isn't there and you stated it's a cosmetic issue only, the UI. So not important.
And... there you go you: let's dive deeper into it.
Guys, the gear mods is like the Hue color: a topping. You're, once again wasting a great idea. Add appearance tabs, then and only then top it with gear mods. One can perfectly go well with the other.
[Shoulder pads]
Guess you did not get the note were many players in all others MMO requested to be able to hide them?
So much that you even went further making them tied to the chest piece, making sure we won't be able to do anything about them.
Wow players are jealous of TOR shoulder flaps, seriously. Still in that game at least some of them they have nice glowing effetcs.
[Character body customization]
TOR is the game in which players see their characters in close up more than any other MMO.
So why do we have really poor face customization? We can't even choose the makeup color of our characters without changing others face features. We have like 4 {eyebrow|jewels|cybernetics|makeup} choices per specie...
And where is the much asked after 5th body option?
[AC respec]
Whatever AC are different classes or not there's a big issue with some roles hard to be filled in groups.
Don't fool yourself, most players that would roll alts won't stop if you implement them. Although players that gets bored or want to try new things or help guilds/friends would stay subscribed longer with it.
In the end the unhappy players leaves. We both loose that way.
[Space content]
In a MMO, single player space content?
And where's the link between the space content and the ground one, but obtaining easy XP and some social clothing?
You stated you knew people (space sim fans) would not be happy with your take on space game play, still you delivered it that way.
It simply doesn't do the trick.
[World living feeling]
In the guild summit it was mentioned improving NPC spawning patterns.
I'm going to quote someone: "Dead, Lifeless, Boring, Stagnant, Monotone, Uninspired Worlds."
The NPC AI is either dull or inexistent. The world is static. The environments feels on rails. There is quite none incentives for exploration. And that's the only thing you mentions about this? Astonishing, really.
Aren't MMO about delivering a world for players to enjoy? A well designed world makes my brain buy it, TOR doesn't.
[Server merge]
Some servers are like ghost towns.
When will you get the nuts to merge them? In the long term you are hurting your game more than else and don't be delusional LFD won't fix that.
I could go on lengthily so as last example:
[Guild summit]
An already not that good idea on paper (limiting it to guild leaders) that wasn't very well managed either.
The communication of the event wasn't that great and divided the player base in two: the pugs players against the guilds.
Then apart the PR what what the idea to have 150 person gathered in 30 minutes panels without any organisation nor preparation at all?
You should have run dedicated forums topics, gather players questions. Now during the summit group guild leaders by group of 7-10 before each panel and write down 2 questions for each group.
BTW, how come nobody from BioWare posted some feedback since the end of the summit? Not even one, "hey guys was great having you there", or maybe "please drop feedback here". You know: communicating.
We all want the game to be insanely successful in the long term, but seems to me you keep shooting yourselves in the feet. It's disappointing for the least.
(P.S.: Repost from the official forums for those who don't lurk there)
Comments
Player group A : We want a, b, c, d, e!!!
developer : fine, there you go.
Player group B : why are you adding a, b, c, d, e!!
Player group C : why don't you add x, y, z ??
Player group D : developers never listen to players!!
And the cycle continues.
This is a Game your taking it a little to seriously.
Enjoy what it is and will be then you'll have fun.
Ajax
Ajax
I think the entire point of these forums is lost upon you.
Op - sounds like you need to let it go with that encyclopedia of faults you've got here. I don't see how you can be enjoying it if that lots on your mind everytime you log in.
Take a break, arrange a road trip with the wookies or something, and chill out.
You shouldnt take the game so seriously....because obviously Bioware doesnt take it seriously.
Playing: PO, EVE
Waiting for: WoD
Favourite MMOs: VG, EVE, FE and DDO
Any person who expresses rage and loathing for an MMO is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
Little difficult to read (english was off) but not terrible and can understand the intended points of each topic.
Anyway...
Unfortunately you're just complaining about the same issues just about every single person with half a brain already complained about.
Yes PvP in SWTOR is bad, it's instanced battleground style and even that isn't much fun
Yes PvE is mostly singleplayer with a few mixed in group areas.
Yes the social aspect of this "MMO" is pretty limited. The world feels dead and they instanced so much of the game it's just bad.
No, you're wrong about LFD.. It will, has, and does help MMO's in a huge way. Cross server is even more important now. These are M.M.O (MASSIVLY MULTIPLAYER)... The point is to have an endless supply of other people in a huge world to play with. The point is not to be stuck on a small ghost-town server but because you're stuck there everyone knows your name?
The arguments i've seen against LFD are always "It ruins community..." "You get stuck with a$$holes..." The community is what the players make of it and your small ghost-town server is going to have just as man a$$holes on it as any other.
Great post Deewee, sadly I think it will fall on deaf ears. Thank you for posting it here, since I avoid the offical forums.
I agree with all your points, though I want to point out something about trying to swap to an open pvp planet. Because Bioware did some very very lazy code work and cut and paste work in the design of the worlds, they really can't make them open pvp worlds.
Hell they can't even just open them up for each side to just travel to, because they are sort of cut and pasted, phased copies of each other. Where all they did was tweak the npcs a bit, change some names and mess with the quests a some. I was having total deja'vu on Balmorra for example when my trooper was in his 30s. Then I realized why, my Imperial Sith warrior was in that same area, same port, same camps etc but he was 20th. Thing is they could never meet because my Trooper was actually assaulting that port in Balmorra and never saw the same npcs that my Sith was.
Why? because they were instanced or phased and not the same place, they were different for each faction. Really crappy game design honestly. Oh and one other note, wouldn't it be nice if anyone could board our ships? Ships as Bioware coded them are crap, utter crap. Anyhow if you get any feedback from Bioware I'd be interested in you posting it here.
Kinda what I thought as well.
The only thing i do not agree on is the 2 factions. It was a terrible mistake to begin with balance wise and they should have known better. Seriously, who didn't see Empire being played by twice the player base?
The Hutt should have been the 3rd faction or better yet, get rid of factions and have the light/dark choices dictate how you end up.
They can?
It's just another instance. Add people to your group, enter first and they can come, too. Would be awfully hard otherwise to get anyone to help in those class missions that use your ship to get you to some secret outpost,
Would have been interesting to see that pulled off. No true real faction, instead how you are treated by the Republic or Empire is based on reputation, dark/light side considerations etc. I imagine it would be a lot more difficult to code well. Since we've seen Biowares latest efforts at code work, I'd have to say they'd not be the ones to do it.
Its clear that some companies understand what makes a good MMO and others simply don't get it.
Bioware missed the mark (IMO) and are continuing to make poor decisions regarding the future of the game.
Vote with your wallet (or pocketbook). It's really the only way that developers will get the message.
Anyone can enter your ship? If they are grouped with you? I wasn't aware of this. I am not fond of the instanced ship/room crap.
You make some good points, but the one thing i will mention about is the AC stuff.
I am about sick of seeing people ask for duel AC specs or something along thoes lines, AC is not a spec, its your class.
you cant play any other game and redo your class once youve picked it. You dont see warriors suddenly becoming pallys in WOW do you? NO you dont.
I think we need a duel spec for different builds for each class, but not switching out what class you are in general. That makes no sense at all.
Im guessing its because each class starts as a basic type and then evolves once your get lvl 10 that makes people think we should be able to change back and forth. EQ2 started out the same way before they changed it.
/end rant
A Hutt faction would've been very cool
summed up
A lot of good suggestions in the OP. Sadly, by confidence that Bioware will even attempt to address most of those is non-existent. Given the current trend, if they do somehow manage to get around to these ideas, they will most likely have broken too many other important things along the way to implementing them.
I hope you get your wishlist though. For the most part I think it would make the game much better.
Unemployment makes people do crazy things
Your opinion about crap notwithstanding, yes, you can get into other people's ships as part of their group.
Good point.
Unfortunately, the ACs are not really different classes from the story perspective. Which makes it exceptionally boring to play through those missions again, just so you can get a Sorcerer as well as an Assassin.
It's not falling on deaf ears, it is being ignored by people who are rational. The guy wrote a essay picking apart incredibly trivial parts of the game and make a handful of good points. This player would NEVER be pleased with any game that he plays. It's hard to agree with a person who finds a fault in just about every single thing to do with this game.
This is a recurring theme among the games haters, no matter what it is they will assume its bad. Its worse than politics.
First thanks for the feedback guys, whatever you agree or not with my views.
Then:
Sorry for the English, trying to improve it as much as I can!
That being said I get your point on the LFD part and IMHO it won't help that much as cross server LFD only works for the bigger instances not for the more regular quests. The world will still feels as much empty as before. The LFD will only help doing the instance not the 2+/4+ heroics for example.
And it won't help improving the GTN transactions nor socializing either.
So, not a happy bunny.
What you're talking about is supposed to be talked about on the official forums.
These forums are (supposedly) meant for more in depth analyzing over the MMORPG games. I know the forums are plagued by the players that don't really understand the meaning of an independent MMORPG game forum, but that shouldn't hinder us from sharing our thoughts despite these people (which you seem to include into).
In short, fun factor has nothing to do with the talk here. Hard facts and comparisons to other games should.
OP: I think you were quite spot on on many things. Although I'm not that into lore in MMOs, it does have a factor in these games and should be obeyed to some degree instead of instantly bending it in order to gain more subscribers.