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Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Curious Changes of Patch 1.1.5
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
Patch 1.1.5 for Star Wars: The Old Republic is a seemingly innocuous 'weekly' patch with some interesting implications for the game. Read on for our thoughts!
Patch 1.1.5 for Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently on the public test server. While the current set of notes is short enough to make one think there isn’t much meat in this latest ‘weekly’ patch, there appear to be a few documented and possibly undocumented changes particularly worth noting.
First, a little bit of context. Last week’s Community Q&A revealed that the seemingly massive upcoming Game Update 1.2 will also contain a large push towards endgame crafting (four pages of Crew Skills related patch notes for 1.2 as of this writing), something many of us thought were further off given how large 1.2 seems to be already. While we aren’t quite sure when 1.2 will arrive, it looks like BioWare is employing some temporary measures in the interim to address a few things, including some of the issues with crafting.
Read more of Michael Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Curious Changes of Patch 1.1.5.
Comments
woohoo !!
more Starwars !!!
My thought is I won't return to SWTOR untill they make it fun, they implement basic mmo functionalities, they fix their numerous bugs, they implement decent textures, they put some life and ambience on their planets and stop asking for a monthly subscription for a single-player game with multiplayer options.
Edit : silly me I forgot that we want Star Wars space combats, not the tunnel "space invaders" gadget they granted us. Oh well, there are so many wrong things with SWTOR, I won't list them here...
The removal of color limitations is a "no duh". Particularly since this limitation extended to blasters as well.
Seeing as how Han Solo's blaster shot red bolts, I guess that means he was a dark side kinda guy. How he made it through Endor without shooting a single Ewok remains a mystery.
It was a dumb thing that they actually put in late in beta due to pressure from the Canonites in the beta forums. Good riddance to total idiocy. As though this game needs more limitations on what your character can and can't use.
Far as "Blue Sith" go... you could always be sith with a blue saber, you just had to avoid dark side choices. And either way, if I were Sith, I would use a blue saber for the sole purpose of pissing off Jedi!
Sounds awesome.
I haven't had more fun on an MMORPG than I have had on SW:TOR.
Also I think you should note that they said they're removing dark/light restrictions on -some- crystals, not all.
I for one thoroughly enjoy this game, I hope the patches will only make it more fun!
" 1.1.5 will temporarily add a new vendor that will sell previously unavailable endgame crystals for credits "
Selling end-game contents in vendor...
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=326525
What the crap? Might as well sell end-game tier set in vendor! or maybe even cash shop?!
Very very disappointed in BW...
RIP Orc Choppa
Really hoping for guild bank and custom UI. make game better and balance PvE before PvP - srsly...
Quoted for epicness. It is so Sith it makes more sense than using red sabers.
I heard everything on the PTR goes to live.
Oh wait it doesn't, maybe they're just testing out new colors... on the test server...
1.5 is a step (baby) in the right direction. Unfortunatly for me (a battlemaster) I'm too burned out of running WZs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over to get my daily/weekly done then heading down to Ilum's massive lag/zerg fest to finish my daily there.
1.5 doesn't really address this, it still requires me to run warzones X infinite and if the numbers are correct it's going to take thousands upon thousands of WZs to get battlemaster gear....no thanks, think I will just call it quits if that's the case.
The PvP in TOR is a good side game, but at endgame it becomes the only game and it's not complicated or fun enough for that.
Lawless sands while a cool area will never be populated unless they massively up the merc drops/bag spawn rate. Currently some of the bags take hours to respawn, I've noted about 4 -5 different bag spawn locations, each bag drops 20 merc and spawns once every 1-3 hours, that is terrible!
Well ...to tell you the truth..these changes are really...trivial..
The things I hear that people want ingame, more pvp, more bgs, GB..etc etc (main reasons they are all going back to WoW)
I am afraid that EA/Bioware's baby is gonna get thrown out with the bath water when GW2 drops.
There was a video they released a while back saying they would be in with 1.2, one also showed the resizing and moving of the bits and pieces of the UI.
Some of the things in the March patch should have been there at launch but at least March isn't too far away now.
Edit - video of the new UI being demonstrated (near the end) http://www.swtor.com/media/trailers/coming-star-wars-old-republic
I agree with some of the previous comments. They need to focus on the fun factor and also implement the usual mmo features.
But yesterday I was on Alderan exploring and questing. I am level 50 and am going back to the different planets to fill out my map and do any quests that may interest me. But there were only 5 to 7 people on Alderan besides myself. Now i was soloing, so it shouldn't have mattered. But seeing such a low number was very discouraging. I meandered around, discovered a few new areas and logged out.
You can use Champion Tokens to gear your compainions, so they arn't totally useless untill you gear all of them up. Am I the only one that figured this out?
and still illum remains usless/broken, good thing i stoped with this crap and returned to gw1 to rdy myself for the future
Need more flashpoints like Esseles with scripted content thats what they should add. And when the hell is Kashyyk gonna be in this game that is the best Star Wars planet by a mile
[mod edit]
I don't like how Bioware continues to dumb down everything because they are afraid their players won't understand. Their changes do little to nothing for me to make the game more fun and interesting. I think one person put it well, they made a single player game into an MMO and forgot to add in the MMO.
I'm glad the PvPers see some value in the game, I don't PvP so perhaps that is my loss. Right now, that seems to be about the only reason you'd continue to play the game once you've hit max level. My favorite quote remains, it's WoW but with sabers. I played WoW, I want something different.
I agree with Bitton on the problems with vendors. However I think the 4 pages of crafting changes are going to be centralized towards fixing the economy. That one change with the crystal vendor didnt make much sense but you can sort of understand that they sold a few things like keys ect that they now have to support as exclusive.. Lets look at a few things you probably keep in mind when seeking a sustainable ((key word sustainable)) player driven economy.
#1
What comes into the game must go out. This means that anything a player or developer makes available in terms of gear transportation and even housing must decay and then be replaced by the player. Players are going to have to understand this.
#2
Do not put items on vendors that will create a trading/sales conflict with the player crafter. If a player can obtain items from a vendor, he wont buy from a crafter out of sheer convenience. You can give your vendors schematics, recipes or skill trains but never the items themselves. Exclusive items should probably be saved for veteran rewards over keys. Likewise beware of Item status you place on items. How much good does it do to give crafters items that he cant trade?
#3
You must have Credit sinks/drains from progression to end game. Known and accepted types are player housing, guild bases and mini games where things like betting/gambling/decor come into the picture. Those are acceptable losses because players can consider them upkeep,or things lost/gained by their own device and chance. Trash cans help on the item side!
#4
Draw a clear line between crafting and raiding. If you're trying to support both and trying to find some sort of sweet middleground, the players will be confused in the meantime. They dont get whether you need them to craft in order to raid, or raid in order to craft but the path can be a long frustrating one. To offset the two you'll have to offer the crafter in this case more item modification through tools. Colorwheels,dyes, recipes unobtainable by raiding. Possibly interchangable parts for item appearance. Things of that sort that help make crafted items worth the credit and time to seek out.
#5
Ensure that players can focus on collection methods and production when you offer crafting and resource collection, separate the crafter from the adventurer. Not many get this reasoning entirely and people normally disagree again due to convenience, but if your economy is player driven, the player must have some focus and cant have that if he is too busy fighting off mobs or going on raids.
#6
Trade centers must be readily accessible per planet.
The trade terminal can only be central to a hub if players can readily access them. Most often we find them in major cities, but consider minor cities as well. If a player has to go from one end of the "galaxy" to the other end to buy an item, he may as well stay where he is or log out from sheer frustration. Accessibility is the key here. In terms of creating hubs, you can only provide the tools and the center, the players will determine their hang out spots based one whats provided in terms of action-down the road, or by action within the hub.
#7 Players are vital to policing and owning their economy, make it known and be clear about it.
You will often find that when farming becomes an issue, the players are disgruntled. You only have a few GMs to police, but the player is ultimately responsible for reporting farmish behavior. Do not provide chests or resources that require no effort to unlock, get to, obtain and so on. Its fine to put a chest somewhere, its not fine to leave it out in the open and its not ok to make it a freebie along the way from point A to B. With that consider that Resource nodes respawn- seek another way of harvesting that requires actual effort on the part of the player to obtain.
#8
Choose a single currency and stick with it.
If you have like 5 currencies... how do you plan to balance and centralize trade if youre trying to manage 4-5 different types of currencies? I dont see it happening. Go with the Galactic credit and call it good.
So, if you look at some of those you can sort of determine where you want to go and what youre trying to accomplished based on the type of economy youre trying to run. Some of those steps are vital right now and if not taken or addressed will ruin the game for many players. Be that by inflation or "profession usefulness."
I really wish people would stop crying. It doesn't matter dude, it's a GAME. Emphasis on GAME. If you want to go around showing off how you no lifed one minor a addon in a game, go play Darkfall or something.
I'm personally glad they're selling these items. Now players who do not want to sit there click spamming for hours a day, upon weeks can also have cool items. Nice move Bioware.
lol.. EZ Mode to the max.
Might as well start selling raid drops too.
You're not. Besides, unless you happen to need/like grinding daily quests for the daily commendations companions are useless once at 50. You can't use them in PvP so the PvP gear is pointless, you don't need them for end game PvE content either.
what are you doing there now then?buying these crystals all day long and that makes you glad ? no need to "click spam" hours a day,is it so painful to play that game ?
Let's internet
Don't disagree with much of anything in your post, but I've quoted the stuff I agree with in particular. Great, thoughful post, Neph!