My current impressions...problems with the game

nightsoft

Ok, I was in beta. Most of the problems in the early game were covered in feedback, and almost all were flat ignored. A good amount of time has passed, and little if anything has changed in the early game. Here are my personal thoughts on what is wrong with the early game.

1) Anemic character creation options.

I'm still unsold on the cartoony slant the game took in design. I think it takes away from the game more than it provides, but more on that later perhaps. The real concern here is the EXTREMELY limited choices when creating a character. Just a few points...

a. It seems that facial hair is very limited as an option.
b. There are no options to change the shape or position of features like nose, eyes, etc.
c. Body options are too limited.
d. Interesting options, like scars and tattoos are also very limited.
e. No height adjustment.

Simply put, the character creation system is a fantastic system...for a game released 10 years ago. There is no viable excuse to limit it to this extent for a modern game.

2) Silly starter missions.

Too many kill loot repeat missions early on, especially with respect to the idea that a player is supposed to feel drawn in to an epic experience. Some of the classes have decent starter areas (Sith Warrior, Trooper, Bounty Hunter) while others (especially Republic force users) are downright boring and even annoying. This is one of the worst parts of the game, a place where the shoddy design work really shows.

3) Limited classes/Cut/Paste special sets for opposing classes.

Lazy and cheap are the words that come to mind. No Sith Trooper, Bounty Hunter and Smuggler have chosen sides, lack of a criminal faction, weak and strong classes right out of the gate. Very poor class and special design. This is not to mention the lack of race choices. All races are humanoid.

4) Forced companion use/appearance

Only one choice of companion, can't play without it. Hundreds of Vetts running around. Appearance options help a bit, but still there are too many clones.

5) Poor armor design/graphics.

The armor offered early on looks very poor. Trooper can't wear a helmut early on, nor a bounty hunter. No hooded robes for Jedi/Sith. Most armor looks like it belongs to a smuggler. Another place where shoddy development work is evident.

6) Clunky combat.

This problem existed before launch, and still exists now, unchanged. The entire combat system is clunky. Full of bugs, misfires, ignoring key presses, choosing the wrong target, etc. It's a mess. Choreography does not make up for shabby work with mechanics.

7) Getting lost at the transitional space station.

This is a VERY common problem. People new to the game, wandering around, getting bored, getting lost on the stations after leaving their respective starter planets. There is NO need to plant a player in that mess so early in the game.


There are many MANY more problems with gameplay, graphics, the engine itself, specials, options, etc, too many to list. But the majority of those unlisted problems could be ignored to some extent. It is impossible with the beginning experience as it sits.


It turns out the naysayers were at least partially right. Bioware should be ashamed.

gasperk

Originally posted by nightsoft

Ok, I was in beta. Most of the problems in the early game were covered in feedback, and almost all were flat ignored. A good amount of time has passed, and little if anything has changed in the early game. Here are my personal thoughts on what is wrong with the early game.

1) Anemic character creation options.

I'm still unsold on the cartoony slant the game took in design. I think it takes away from the game more than it provides, but more on that later perhaps. The real concern here is the EXTREMELY limited choices when creating a character. Just a few points...

a. It seems that facial hair is very limited as an option.
b. There are no options to change the shape or position of features like nose, eyes, etc.
c. Body options are too limited.
d. Interesting options, like scars and tattoos are also very limited.
e. No height adjustment.

Simply put, the character creation system is a fantastic system...for a game released 10 years ago. There is no viable excuse to limit it to this extent for a modern game.

2) Silly starter missions.

Too many kill loot repeat missions early on, especially with respect to the idea that a player is supposed to feel drawn in to an epic experience. Some of the classes have decent starter areas (Sith Warrior, Trooper, Bounty Hunter) while others (especially Republic force users) are downright boring and even annoying. This is one of the worst parts of the game, a place where the shoddy design work really shows.

3) Limited classes/Cut/Paste special sets for opposing classes.

Lazy and cheap are the words that come to mind. No Sith Trooper, Bounty Hunter and Smuggler have chosen sides, lack of a criminal faction, weak and strong classes right out of the gate. Very poor class and special design. This is not to mention the lack of race choices. All races are humanoid.

4) Forced companion use/appearance

Only one choice of companion, can't play without it. Hundreds of Vetts running around. Appearance options help a bit, but still there are too many clones.

5) Poor armor design/graphics.

The armor offered early on looks very poor. Trooper can't wear a helmut early on, nor a bounty hunter. No hooded robes for Jedi/Sith. Most armor looks like it belongs to a smuggler. Another place where shoddy development work is evident.

6) Clunky combat.

This problem existed before launch, and still exists now, unchanged. The entire combat system is clunky. Full of bugs, misfires, ignoring key presses, choosing the wrong target, etc. It's a mess. Choreography does not make up for shabby work with mechanics.

7) Getting lost at the transitional space station.

This is a VERY common problem. People new to the game, wandering around, getting bored, getting lost on the stations after leaving their respective starter planets. There is NO need to plant a player in that mess so early in the game.


There are many MANY more problems with gameplay, graphics, the engine itself, specials, options, etc, too many to list. But the majority of those unlisted problems could be ignored to some extent. It is impossible with the beginning experience as it sits.


It turns out the naysayers were at least partially right. Bioware should be ashamed.

This are only the problems you encountered up to lvl 15.... try getting to 50 and play for a week... then you can post another 324 problems. 

jeremyjodes

Sounds Right. if you had made it to 50 you would have found yourself utterly blown away by the amount of boredom and frustration that comes with your first level 50. the class story is all that keeps you going then it's over.

If they would have put some real effort into legacy so the cost of unlocks would have been tied to legacy level and not a credit sink. it would have provided tons more thing's to do at 50.

What I found odd was, the nerfing of healers and biochem then tanks. before LFG you had to solo all those heroics and you had to be at least level 15 before you could attain sprint buff. once they nerfed biochem it made solo play very tough.

I check in over there even though I can't post, and those forums and the lack of any real questions being answered by the devs is so sad for those guys hoping it gets better. I know we call them names but that kind of silence can only mean a few things. and those few things are not good.

Anyways pretty much true...add another 148 thing's you don't realize until level 50 and you are spot on.

nightsoft

It just seems to me that the design direction was completely off base, not to mention some of the weak storylines. They had three strong bases to pull from...Star Wars game fans(SWG, KotOR and Battlefront), general SW fans and gaming fans.

 

Instead of STRONGLY leaning on the influences of KotOR/SWG/Battlefront they decided to only use a few notable aspects of each game and concentrate more on WoW it seems.

 

A few more silly things...

 

Armor customization

Two ways you can do this...mods (almost non-existant early game) and "color match", which is a pretty silly option considering other games on the market. Not having a "color change" at the very least is simply foolish. All armor should have a color change option.

Not to mention that shoulders should have been separate.

Companion

No easy or obvious way to rename your companion, no way to compare armor in your bag to what the companion is wearing (shows your armor comparison instead), no way to colormatch on companion. Appearance change comes from drop in sets, very limited in choice. Again, all pieces of armor should have color changing ability built in, and you should get to choose your companions appearance like your own, and name..

Cover mechanic

Very VERY clunky. Would have been better to set up the option to either "take cover", where you simply kneel, get a base bonus to avoidance and bonuses if you are near green arrows, and "move and shoot", where you click on a green hologram of a kneeling person behind cover, all options put before you in the vacinity. Having it as a toggle in that way would have removed most of the problems with the mechanic I believe.

Karteli

I haven't seen a MMO do really good hair styling, although me and some former SWTOR'ers play Aion now, since it went F2P, and the character models are pretty much the best I've seen, thus far.  If you spend enough time you can make your avatar look the way you want 'em to look (hair excluded, only I think 50 hair pieces available).  Still change your nose dimensions, nostel distance, eye slant, eye size, size / position of each facial body part (even your cheek bones, dang) ... exact height, leg size, leg girth, hips, feet size .. etc etc . ..

 

It may not be the best out there (is there a better one, please tell), but it's a pretty damn good benchmark.

 

I kind of think that the SWTOR engine was so shoddy (experience from playing it -- rendering other players kills this game on FPS) that it could not handle changes to a characters physical dimensions.  So they hardcoded 3 or 4 different models (body types) for armor and said, "there you go, full customization".

 

An engine like Aion handles different character models on the fly, SWTOR couldn't do it -- they lost their system engineering, design, and programming talent by contracting too much ... but that is another story.