Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Fixed

 

1.5.1a Patch Notes

11/28/2012

Companion Characters

• Companion Characters will now summon with the proper stat bonuses from equipped gear.

/thread ;)

nvm

Waiting?

1. Epic video (a must to see)
2. That's the real story
3. Makazie one
4. The crossroads of destiny:

A must to watch for BH:

1. Part 1
2. Part 2
3. Part 3

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Always thought that a success in everything is a positive thinking. BioWare gives F2P players one thing that was asked the most. And guess what... it brings mostly negativity here.

Don't you guys see any light in the tunnel? So depressing to see so much negativity everywhere.

Don't you think that you would be more happy if you actually could see that glass is half full than half empty?

Just a suggestion of course.

Well the light you see isn't the resurrection of the game the end of it.

At this point the game needs a defibrillator in the way of new leads that gets a clue about:

1. Communicating with their clients
2. Managing teams, budgets and schedules
3. MMOs
4. Quality and polishing
5. R.O.I

Originally posted by nate1980
To those complaining about xp,

For a game focused on the leveling experience (the story) , and with most people who quit doing so because they ran out of content, why are you all so concerned about reduced xp? Why rush through the best part of the game? I remember when it tool me 3 years to get my first 50 in DAOC and here we have people complaining about the leveling speed in SWTOR?

Get real. Beware is giving players what they want, but then people move the bar so they can keep complaining. First it was hotbars, now its xp gain, next it'll be the helmet slot people won't play over. Ridiculous.

Not sure they are giving people what they want.

We asked for less stuns in PvP and everybody agrees on Mercenary and Gunnery Trooper needed some luving. In 1.4 they increased stuns duration and nerfed even more those classes.

Now about your example, F2P players are getting XP slow... when regular players that have been asking for a XP toggle for nearly one year still don't have it.

Originally posted by ericlatrelle

First off, if it would have been up to me, the game wouldn't have had to go F2P in the first place. I would have created an actual MMO that people would have paid and stayed for. I would have actually listened to the Beta testers, weekend testers and the actual players after launch to correct the deficiences that were present and the ones that weren't foreseen after launch.

It amazes me that people truly think it is hard to correct issues and to take in and implement feedback. But I guess it's like someone said, common sense really isn't that common.

There's a thing obviously STOR managers lacked is: common sense.

Sadly they had really great suggestion over the years on the forums and well some designers new better but it was them against the ones in power during a global economy crisis...

Unless you are caped or don't use companion I'd suggest people putting TOR on hold for the next hours/days as they are totally messed up

"All of my companions have under 10k Health? And the old 're-equip gear' trick is undone the moment you mount/dismount/desummon/zone in to another area. 

So basically companions were made useless last patch. Awesome


-EDIT-


IF YOU DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING 
= 
GEAR REVERTS TO BEING 'NON EXISTENT'

- Take an elevator
- Summon a different companion
- When a companion returns from crew skill
- Desummon and resummon same companion.
- Start a quest
- Mount/dismount
- Send your companion to sell inventory junk
- Using your holocommunicator
- Using Rocketboost
- Using Quicktravel
- Using Priority Transport/fleet
- Getting knocked off speeder throws you in to combat and therefore cannot gear switch = usually means you die or run away clinging for life.
- Using any of the hangar elevators on fleet.


Yeeeh totally not gamebreaking to have to re-equip gear any time you do any of the above."

Clikcy

Seems there's another more annoying bug:

If when you log in, as a subscriber, the system cannot get whatever it needs to verify your subscription it:
1) Deletes all digital subscriber/founder/etc items
2) Locks your toon like a F2P toon
3) Deletes the configuration for your 3-6th bars
etc.

Lucky for me I didn't have things like additional bank tabs on that toon or more than 300k credits 

Logged out, log back in, sub is back, digital items are in the mail like a new toon; configuration is gone.

Originally posted by lucasdeis
http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/22477-preferred-status-players-receiving-two-additional

Awaken me when they roll back most of the class changes since 1.2 in PvP, especially the last ones making Trooper even worse than before and well the ones making the game feels more a Stun Wars...

Sad as in other games I would have been hammered with requests for free stuff and well did not even got a PM for TOR.

It's depressing to see there's so little interest in this game anymore :(

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Originally posted by vayman

I was disappointed in the trooper story. It started out well enough, but quickly lost its way and ultimately led to an anti-climax, in my opinion.

The best story is IA hands down... following by Sith Warrior in my opinion. IA story is getting better and better and have some twists that just stun you. I leveled LS operative, and going to start  level Ds sniper in few weeks. DS trooper is fun though.

 

Wish the Sith Warrior story was more compelling and closer to being a you know... Vader as in episodes IV-VI.

You feel nothing special about being a sith warrior, even the ending isn't that well made.

Good idea!

I'm topping his proposal with heroic baner, crystals color of your choice, a few meds packs to help you and even few credits

Say what?

;)

Originally posted by DeniZg

Originally posted by mikahr
Dont buy any unlocks, if you like the game subscribe, if dont dont play it, unlocks are waste of money, thats how F2P is pretty much setup.

Pretty much agree.

As a preferred player (bought the box and had a sub for half a year), I think the new F2P system is a slap in the face and I wouldn't give them any money even if they rehauled the whole game and made it the best MMO there is.

Still, for a new F2P-er, I think that subbing for a month or two gives you very good bang for your buck when it comes to entertainment value.

Totally agree.

Try the game for free and if you like it sub. Otherwise don't start spending on unlock it's going to cost you way more and limit your gameplay experience.

Originally posted by Impulse47
This game is so P2UI.

Lol, made my day.

Please someone make a comic out of this.

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Im taking it for what it is.  Running through the stories for free.  Cant beat that.  All the restrictions dont affect me and if they did I would just buy them.  I mean its not like its a 100 dollars a month.    If/when I get bored... Ill just stop playing.

Removal of the sub was the barrier for me.  Definitely not worth a consistent 14.95 every single month.

Glad you are enjoying the game, still you're pointing at one of the main issue with the F2P model: the content is (mostly) free.

The game can't subside nor improve without cash flooding  in.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

**snip**

Although that list appears quite long, I don't consider those to be anything more than minor bugs.  When I think of  a game not having polish, I am thinking of Vanguard (launch), Darkfall (launch), Mortal Online, UO (launch).   Those that you listed are bugs....they don't take away from the polish of the game.

LOTRO had a great launch indeed but I do think TOR's was just as good.  Have you been around for a bad launch (like Vanguard?)  Have you ever gone in places on a map where there was simply nothing there (i.e. empty spaces like in Darkfall?) Those, to me, are huge bugs.  What you essentially listed was a bullet list of minor bugs that it looks like you picked up from some forum or something.  I haven't noticed more than  half of them and I've been playing since early access.  Nice try though.

It's not a try it's just a few random things that comes to mind when thinking about the gameplay experience.

All my entries points at lack of polish. Things you would not have in a Blizzard game nor did I saw that much in Rift either. Even  LotRo feels much more polished and consistent.

 

Here's a few other examples: there are many holes in the environmental graphics letting you see though them. I never noticed that many since I was a beta tester in my former life.

Also too often in the cutscene you see weird, stairs like, shadows on the NPC body making them look very bad.

You can't move around the companions skills neither in their own bar nor in a separate one.

There's not even a shortcut to access (Ie promote) the codex 

The game  doesn't remember either if you set your quest tracker off, always bringing it back after loading planets or big instances.

The group tracker does not sort instances by level nor display the level bracket next to the quest.

The group finder does not check your template vs your available roles.

In the keybinding panel you have to read from right to left to know what does what and the key are on two rows for each skill

The font used in game is a bold one making it very unconvenient and tiring to read.

 

And the lists goes on and on.

 

Sorry but the game isn't polished and lacks quality compared to others AAA MMO.

Those items don't really bother me and seem more trivial than anything else.

I guess we have very different ideas of what "polish" means.

I can't recall the game it was....but there was a fairly recent game where if you typed in the chat box and the sentence was long enough, it didn't wrap around properly and actually left the chat box space.   That to me, is lack of polish.  Most AAA games post WoW have all been pretty polished.  Some more than others, but I personally found TOR to be very well polished.  I can't determine if LOTRO or TOR were better because it really feels like I am splitting hairs....but again, these items you listed seem like very minor scratches...not enough to deem the game unpolished.   It seems more like personal nitpicking than anything else.

But to each their own.

 

Want some examples about low quality on the chat features?

 

Here's a few 

• CTRL left or right does not skip to the next word. That a very basic usage in chat functionnality
• Many right click character name basic functions are missing
• Can't set the chat text next to the borders of the screen
• If I remember well can't page up/down in the chat text.
• No basic slider to scroll the text either.
• Can't even edit the chat windows through the UI applet

 

It's not nickpicking it's about having a well and evenly polished game.

There's a reason Blizzard is successful and well Trion is also considered delivering quality.

 

For now TOR has lower quality standards than the main AAA MMOs

 

Ok, you've got to be kidding.  Those listed issues right above are inconsequential.  Now it's obvious to me you are just trying to find any possible fault you can (no matter how small) and bring it up as a mark against the game's polish.   List me some real issues and then I'll actually consider it.  As it is right now this is patently absurd.

Say whatever you want the games I mentioned have these elements well done and btw it's in the details that you can see the quality of the polish.

Why do you think people pay way more for Apple products? Quality and polish of wich TOR is lacking especially compared to the others AAA MMO.

Now speaking of major issues dig into the FPS and network synchronisation.

For the record we don't have chat bubbles yet because the UI frames are killing the frame rate. 

Also world PvP was taken away because the engine can't handle more than a handful of players in the same area.

(Note before even trying: even the devs acknowledged these)

But I already pointed you to those and you keep closing your eyes.

Anyway I have a foot long of very specific examples, that didn't even took me time to think about, when you on the contrary have nothing to oppose to.

Originally posted by nate1980

...how would you of done it? K

Easy:

Originally posted by Deewe

Let's start with the obvious:

 

The actual model for TOR F2P system is miss which hits a summit with making people pay for UI elements like quick slot bars.

 

Now here's how the model should have been designed:

• Provide all the tools needed to enjoy the content to the player for free.
• Have first steps of the story element free for all the classes.
• Do not restict players on basic choices (Ex: allow players to create only 2 characters but with any of the species for free).
• Set a very low fee for purchaseable item, consumables.
• Do not restrict some items to the random packs only

 

The main idea driving the system would be hook the players in game with all the bells and whistles and have them pay for convenience items, quests hubs and fluff like pets, new gear skins/meshes. For the PvP, Operations, space missions have them (eventually) unlock them by bracket levels with a one time purchase.

 

Make sure not to set the pricing too high and here's where the real trick kicks in.

Have the pricing model setting the prices so low that players won't even feel like spending money at all.

While the quests hubs could be in the $5 range all the rest should be under $1

Recommending a piece of gear @ $0.90, no more and  consumables $0.10-$0.15

 

You want players to feel spoiled. This way you'll get more money by having hundred of thousands people spending happily a few bucks than trying to milk players with the actual fees. Also think about the word of mouth you would get: free advertizing = more customers

For prices set at  $0.10, $0.90 people will hardly hesitate before buying stuff at all, in the end spending much more than with a more obvious rip-off system.

 

All in all think coke not Ferrari.

 

D.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

**snip**

Although that list appears quite long, I don't consider those to be anything more than minor bugs.  When I think of  a game not having polish, I am thinking of Vanguard (launch), Darkfall (launch), Mortal Online, UO (launch).   Those that you listed are bugs....they don't take away from the polish of the game.

LOTRO had a great launch indeed but I do think TOR's was just as good.  Have you been around for a bad launch (like Vanguard?)  Have you ever gone in places on a map where there was simply nothing there (i.e. empty spaces like in Darkfall?) Those, to me, are huge bugs.  What you essentially listed was a bullet list of minor bugs that it looks like you picked up from some forum or something.  I haven't noticed more than  half of them and I've been playing since early access.  Nice try though.

It's not a try it's just a few random things that comes to mind when thinking about the gameplay experience.

All my entries points at lack of polish. Things you would not have in a Blizzard game nor did I saw that much in Rift either. Even  LotRo feels much more polished and consistent.

 

Here's a few other examples: there are many holes in the environmental graphics letting you see though them. I never noticed that many since I was a beta tester in my former life.

Also too often in the cutscene you see weird, stairs like, shadows on the NPC body making them look very bad.

You can't move around the companions skills neither in their own bar nor in a separate one.

There's not even a shortcut to access (Ie promote) the codex 

The game  doesn't remember either if you set your quest tracker off, always bringing it back after loading planets or big instances.

The group tracker does not sort instances by level nor display the level bracket next to the quest.

The group finder does not check your template vs your available roles.

In the keybinding panel you have to read from right to left to know what does what and the key are on two rows for each skill

The font used in game is a bold one making it very unconvenient and tiring to read.

 

And the lists goes on and on.

 

Sorry but the game isn't polished and lacks quality compared to others AAA MMO.

Those items don't really bother me and seem more trivial than anything else.

I guess we have very different ideas of what "polish" means.

I can't recall the game it was....but there was a fairly recent game where if you typed in the chat box and the sentence was long enough, it didn't wrap around properly and actually left the chat box space.   That to me, is lack of polish.  Most AAA games post WoW have all been pretty polished.  Some more than others, but I personally found TOR to be very well polished.  I can't determine if LOTRO or TOR were better because it really feels like I am splitting hairs....but again, these items you listed seem like very minor scratches...not enough to deem the game unpolished.   It seems more like personal nitpicking than anything else.

But to each their own.

 

Want some examples about low quality on the chat features?

Here's a few 

• CTRL left or right does not skip to the next word. That a very basic usage in chat functionnality
• Many right click character name basic functions are missing
• Can't set the chat text next to the borders of the screen
• If I remember well can't page up/down in the chat text.
• No basic slider to scroll the text either.
• Can't even edit the chat windows through the UI applet

Originally posted by MikeB

Originally posted by eddieg50
The one think I do not like is that preferred and free players get less experience, that will throw off the balance of the game and make people have to grind more defeating the purpose of a story driven mmo

Are you kidding? I wish I could nerf my experience gain. It's so ridiculously easy to outlevel the game's content. I've played alongside a Preferred player and his XP gain was fine.

Mike is right many of us would even pay to get a slider to lower the XP expericence as, as soon as you're doing side content (PvP, Space, Heroics, Flashpoints) along the class quests you're outleveling the game.

Now few things about the interview:

First let's be honest here, BioWare/EA can say whatever they want, the players left not because of the business model (montlhy fees) but because the game wasn't worth $15 monthly.

Then about the F2P option, let's say as a player you're just interested in a specific part of the game being either Flashpoints or Operations, or PvP, or Space content or only one at a time and switch between them each week.

According to the pricing form here it's going to cost a player from $7,63 and $11,50 monthly depending whether you get your CC with the smallest or biggest packages.

Now add to that that compared to the $14.99 subscription price you're not getting the 500 "free" CC. Ie a value of $3.63 to $5.54

Then top it with the fact you are very limited in every aspect of the game vs a VIP player.

While it makes sense to give less to non subscribed players, at this point you're more or less paying more than them for getting less.

In short the real choice is: sub or leave.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

**snip**

Although that list appears quite long, I don't consider those to be anything more than minor bugs.  When I think of  a game not having polish, I am thinking of Vanguard (launch), Darkfall (launch), Mortal Online, UO (launch).   Those that you listed are bugs....they don't take away from the polish of the game.

LOTRO had a great launch indeed but I do think TOR's was just as good.  Have you been around for a bad launch (like Vanguard?)  Have you ever gone in places on a map where there was simply nothing there (i.e. empty spaces like in Darkfall?) Those, to me, are huge bugs.  What you essentially listed was a bullet list of minor bugs that it looks like you picked up from some forum or something.  I haven't noticed more than  half of them and I've been playing since early access.  Nice try though.

It's not a try it's just a few random things that comes to mind when thinking about the gameplay experience.

All my entries points at lack of polish. Things you would not have in a Blizzard game nor did I saw that much in Rift either. Even  LotRo feels much more polished and consistent.

Here's a few other examples: there are many holes in the environmental graphics letting you see though them. I never noticed that many since I was a beta tester in my former life.

Also too often in the cutscene you see weird, stairs like, shadows on the NPC body making them look very bad.

You can't move around the companions skills neither in their own bar nor in a separate one.

There's not even a shortcut to access (Ie promote) the codex 

The game  doesn't remember either if you set your quest tracker off, always bringing it back after loading planets or big instances.

The group tracker does not sort instances by level nor display the level bracket next to the quest.

The group finder does not check your template vs your available roles.

In the keybinding panel you have to read from right to left to know what does what and the key are on two rows for each skill

The font used in game is a bold one making it very unconvenient and tiring to read.

And the lists goes on and on.

Sorry but the game isn't polished and lacks quality compared to others AAA MMO.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Deewe

Quality? You are kidding right?

 

TOR is the apogee of uneven polishing and quality. While some parts of the game and engine really shines, too many of them are really lacking. It goes from the textures, through the UI, the combat... name it.

Compare TOR to Wow, Rift, even Lotro and then you'll see what quality means.

 

I've played all those....and I don't agree.  I have always found the game to be well polished.  The launch was one of the smoothest I have experienced.  I wasn't able to see the Illium disaster first-hand so I can't comment on that...(was still low level at the time).

But if you want to talk lack of polish....Vanguard at release was the epitomy of this.  So not sure what you mean.

Lotro's launch was even smoother.

Here's a few example about polisth/consticency

• Taxi cost is 10 times the space ship fuel cost to go from one planet to the other
• You can have Sith corruption on non force user characters
• Your ship leaves the planet when you speak to the door* (enters it).
• We can Holocom from anywhere but not manage emails the same way nor even browse the GTN either. So much for an advanced civilization.
• We can use mail boxes from our ship but can't recall directly to them and mostly always pass in front of a mailbox to take off.
• You can shuttle out and med rez anywhere but you can't recall to your space ship
• We can force choke or nut kick droids or even force slap turrets.
• Most Sith choices are about greed or fame.
• Texts display of dialog choices too often does not fit the spoken lines
• We have to take off to access to our space ship interior/bank.
• Using a lift pops up a select destination when there's only one,
• Non force user companions can also combat jump with as good skills
• Melee characters needs to keep running between mobs without a boost to compensate the needs to do so versus ranged characters.
• We find rare crystal nodes and artifacts in the open next to main roads.
• There's no distinctive icon for all various resource nodes
• There's no distinctive icon for all various quests types
• There's no scale consistency on the maps
• You "can" fly over a planet but you have a fog of war on the world map
• Taxi use the exact same route for return travel meaning you always hit someone else coming from the same direction.
• A one foot rock will stop your hovering speeding bike like you hit a wall
• Falling down from 6 feet on a hovering speeder bike will hurt your character.
• You can't force jump or use jetpacks without actually attacking something
• It's impossible to fight with the shoulder flaps
• Companions always gets in your way
• Name tags are always on top of all others graphics and there's no hot key toggle
• You can't close the quest tracker once for all. Same for the legacy popup.
• It's faster to dismiss and summon your companion than to heal it
• You can't one button sell grey items at the vendor
• Managing mods between the character and companions requests you to write them down on a sheet of paper.
• You can't deactivate a saber blade in combat would you like it to
• Comapnions get stuck with saber bales drawn even out of combat.
• Your companions can sell grey stuff but they can't sell anything else
• Gear vendor prices aren't written in your inventory
• Mobs and NPCs standing still. They are lifeless. Just standing there, chilling and doing 
• nothing.
• Any NPC can request a Sith lord (you) to sweep the floor for them
• A Moff emails you a few hundreds credits as reward
• Officers instead of grunts wears ammo bandolier
• Trading with a vendor does not open inventory window by default but last used one
• Some light weapon based weapons have recoil and Sniper animations include working a bolt action on the rifle, even though it doesn't need to chamber a new round.
• On taxi rides you are in the driver's seat but can't do anything.
• Can't add offline players to friend list
• No display of gear price in the inventory