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The replayability on this game is quite awful.
There was some debate before the game released about how replayable the game is, ie. by my definition how fresh and interesting a second or third character is.
I have played 4 characters past level 20 on the same faction. I have played to characters past level 30 and one past level 40.
The replaybability is terrible especially if your first character was a stealth class that can skip fights. Every single character will wind up doing the exact same quests in the same area almsot 90% of the content will be shared extactly the same. The only 10% difference is the class quests of which you will do roughly 1-2 per level after leve 15 o 16.
If you solo the game and stealth past some fight you must do almost every single quests that exists. If you solo and don't skip you will need to do about 90% of the quests.
Obviously if you grind instances you may do less or possibly none at all.
The only variation that exists is in light/dark side choices/companion reactions. And in the end simply by playing one light side and one dark side you have basically seen all there is to see except the small portion of quests that is the class quest (which is far too slow to develop to justify griding through the same quests a third time). Compaion reaction is novel and all but in the end only matter from a roleplaying perspective anyway as gifts is the way to go if you have seen it all before. And frankly that is extremely meager picking unless you are really into the role play part.
Comments
I really can't see myself making alts in this game. Basically for the reason you mentioned. Too much retread and repetition. It is a blast to do once but on alts. No thanks...
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
The game has many times more replayability than any other MMO I have played on release day. If you don't want to do the quests over again than don't. Do instances, group quests, space combat or PVP and you will level quickly doing any of those. And if all that isn't enough go play the other faction and get a 100% new set of quests.
Honestly what more would it have taken to keep you from complaining? Because I have a hard time seeing any game company releasing a new MMO with more content than what SW:TOR has today. It's hands above what EQ2, WoW, LOTR, etc. had at launch.
so much for the 200 hours of unique gameplay per class they promised us http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-06-29-ea-200-hours-of-play-per-swtor-class
same thing I found as well though I'm an alt aholic in MMOs and this was the worst alt experience I have had in this type of game.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Seems about the same as any other mmo to be honest.
its not always about just the content.. its about making the content that's their enjoyable ot play through many times.. to me the planets were just so dull, boring, and so heavily phased going through them multiple times felt like a chore.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
At 40, I've not done more than 5 (maybe less) side-quests (non-class) through my journey thus far. Haven't done a single FP either, I have plenty of content left for a second play-through. Did this on purpose BTW as I wanted to save content for a second play-through if I was bored once I hit cap.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I dont understand why if the OP was going to make alts, at least one of them wasnt the opposite faction.
That would open ya up to the opposite sides flashpoints.
Oh well....maybe a RP thing with them. Although I prefer being the good guy, and spend more time on my republic chars, I still get my empire kick on as well.
Asking Devs to make AAA sandbox titles is like trying to get fine dining on a McDonalds dollar menu budget.
One thing I do wish was that pvp gave more experience. It's quite a grind if you try to level just by pvping.
Yeah it's taking a while, a little over a month leveling this way, as I've been switching it up between PVP, daily quests (PVP/space) and doing class quests. I have no complaints about it though, I've had fun.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I don't know how to say this without sounding like I am flaming you, but:
What planet are you living on? LOTRO, EQ2 and WoW all had far more PvE replyability at launch. I don't even really like any of those games all that much. I certainly could not play them again for a couple months right now, really. Have you ever tried to do all the quests in the shire alone? The Shire alone has more to do than all of dromund kass, korriban, tython and corsuscant combined. Then add in that LOTRO has two other starting areas as well and I am just astounded anyone can say this sort of stuff with the text equivalent of a straight face.
I have never played an MMO where starting a new character was so stiltingly the same. And losing Sprint is terrible, going back to the slow run and running around Dromond Kaas's capital in slow motion over vast pointless empty spaces just because the taxi lines don't connect is not fun either. Being forced back to dromund kass at level 30 just to do the stupidl same trip I have seen over and over but now I can do at a brisk 30 mph speeder, yeah it amazing.
Egad and the arrow in the knee jokes any time you mention losing sprint. 80% of the player base thinks the design decision of giving sprint at level 14 is a horribly bad joke. "You sir are a badass Sith who can fly through the air at 60 mph over short distance and um but don't try to do more than a jog we wouldn't want you to strain yourself".
I have played a large number of MMO's on launch day and for me anyways SW:TOR is the first one that I accually was able to level mulitple toons though the content without giving up halfway though the second toon. I have 2 level 50's and 2 mid 20's right now, all empire and am still enjoying the experience. Although I will say that I am spending a lot more time doing instances, PVP and space combat on my 20's so I can pick and choose what planets I spend time on.
Some planets I like a lot more than others but I am also pretty sure if someone did a poll of favorite planets the results would be pretty even so I'm not going to hold it against Bioware for trying to make the planets feel different.
This is exactly why my roommate played the game for only two weeks with three characters before being done with the game and letting my try it for the remainder of his free month before canceling.
Unbelievable when I think back to the Everquest days and where my friends and I were at the two week point from starting the game.
What do you guys expect from a console rpg game thats called a mmorpg, instead of an epic true mmorpg with all the features a real mmo should have. TOR =KOTOR and you pay 15/month to play it ;-)
True story
curious how you feel they "feel" differn't to me when I walk around a planet its a lifeless shell to cater to my personal story. No dynamic events very static npcs sitting around mostly doing nothing. You have a few npcs sitting shooting nothing over and over but as a whole nothing really going on. We are supposed to be in a time of conflict in the universe here yet every planet feels like nothing is actually happening around me. Maybe I closed my eyes on all the immersive portions of the worlds or fell asleep and only woke up when nothing was going on but if you can show me some video of how alive these worlds are I'd love to see it.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
This game's replayability is in one class on the dark side and one on the light side. I can't imagine myself leveling another one on the same side because like OP said, 90 % of the quests will be repeated.
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So you repeat quests and that makes it different than all of the other mmos how?
Dude, in order to "pick and choose what planet I do". You have to literally grind an ass ton of non-quest stuff. Each planet is roughly 3-5 levels (although quesh is very brief in comparison).
PvP in SWTOR is awful, IMO. Also many people do not even like PvP in general. Acting like that is a sufficient answer is BS.
Anyone claiming they are doing significantly leveling through space combat is doing tons and tons of missions. The repeatables do not give the same xp as the initial mission. There are only about 6 unique missions by level 35. Completely one space mission the first time give similar XP to 1 quest. 1 quest.
In addition to that, I did all the space mission on my character so the progression I mentioned in my first post is with Space Combat in cluded but not grinded. And grinding space missions is terrible xp.
In SWTOR when you first leave Dromund Kass on your class quest you given a fake choice between two planets to continue your class quest. One planet is a level 16 quest the other planet is a level 20 quest. There is no choice they just give you two quests to make it appear as if it worked like KOTOR games. Then they completely discard the BS illusion after that and your class quest is completely linear is both appearance and function rather than just function.
Anyone not griding instances and mostly leveling by quests. Is not skipping any planet. And griding instances IS NOT A FRESH experience.
The only way you can make this fantasy work is by claiming that grinding the same thing over and over = replayability. Its BS.
the fact that they designed the planets to be so linear so phased so uninspired you have no desire to actually go through them multiple times/
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
And this is different from other theampark MMO's how? Any dynamic feel other MMO's have is a illusion at best that is quickly pulled apart by standing in one spot long enough to watch the loop complete. The immerisve elements come in the quest instances, the open world is static. Honestly I would prefer more dynamic "live" worlds myself as well but I understand why developers do it. It keeps the world accessable to people coming into the game at different points in time.
I also have two republic characters
Right because all other MMO content is so insprired?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I think the point is that the PVE leveling path is very linear, with few alternative paths due to lack of redundant content. (One big reason WoW was such a success was that even in Vanilla, there was plenty of redundancy, which allowed you to chart a leveling path through different combinations of zones that allowed you to have fresh content for a number of alts before you had seen almost everything). Also, as noted, the world zones in SWTOR are just incredibly "blah". In good MMOs, the zones will be "cool" enough that you want to play through them more than once. Not the case for many people here with TOR.
Of course, there is also the matter of the "distinct, class based story lines". Many were led to believe that there was over a hundred hours (or even two hundred hours) of story content unique to each class, but that just is not the case. Much of the story content is shared by the other classes of the same faction and the amount that is actually unique to a class is fairly sparse. So, even though you might have 20 hours of new story for an alternate class, you have way too much in the way of "re-runs", which for many make subsequent alt experiences feel like retreads. (This also really highlights how linear the game is. Any illusion of meaningful choice goes out the window when you play an alt and realize that the non-class specific content plays out the same, even if you make very different choices).
It's nice to have alternatives to leveling, like PVE and the space mini-game, as well as the small group instances, but in my own experience, these were all pretty lackluster and were not up to par with even mediocre MMORPG competition. If the developers were relying on these things to extend the game experience and enhance replayability, they should have done a much better job with the design and implimentation.
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I felt the same way in WoW. It is no different. Perhaps games like EVE are diferent, they are, but most of the themepark mmos are made exactly the same.
Only thing I can think of here is that people get conversation fatigue. In other games you just click and go but in SWTOR, even if just spacebarring, it will take a lot longer to get the actual quest.
I have never ever played a AAA mmo that had this much of a bland planet design or had such heavily phased linear zones. It does'nt take much to make it show the dev's put some work into the zones and I don't get the feeling in this game at all
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/339443/Video-FollowUp-Guide-For-Enhancing-Graphics-and-Performance-in-SWTORSorry-still-Nvidia-Only.html
Class quests will give roughly 10-15% of an xp bar per level. Doing the rest via repeatables is an incredible grind without PvP. You would need to grind the same two flashpoint 4-5 time per level for probably about 3 levels.
Doing it via PvP would be an incredible grind for people who do not think SWTOR PvP is very good or who do not like PvP at all.
Isn't it claimed by most people that SWTOR's main selling point is that its a great PvE game?