I got a love hate relation with this game but I'm not starting this topic about that, There are some things that I think a lot of people also would like to see gets added into SWTOR.
The galaxy, everyone who knows alittle Star Wars lore knows that the galaxy in this IP universe is huge with millions of populated planets and moons and everything in the between.
I would like to see BW change the whole galaxy map travel and make it more feel like a living galaxy, I'm not talking about adding all those millions of planets and moons but how travel works in the game.
I would like to see some form of free travel, you can of course travel from planet A to planet B as before, but if you free travel you can get "alerts" such as pirates attacking, a battle, ship wrecks, event chains that leads either to dark side or light side depends how you chose, think of Guild Wars 2 "dynamic" system they have in that game, you can land on moons and planets to find rare artefacts and rare crafting items, beasts to slay, ancient items for your ship, you can also attack the other sides npc ships board them and collect loot and reputations, and with free travel i mean within star systems not out in the darkest of space.
Devs can in this way add more alerts and more dynamic events on the fly with patches so you don't get the feeling, aww done that moon relic hunt 10 times now kinda feeling.
Make space fun, not a rail shooter we have now that is for me extremely boring and a useless activity.
Redo the PvP planet make it a truly PvP planet with objective to defend, upgrade defence buildings, territory control, in those territories your side controls spawns barter NPCs with special goods, rare crafting mats and perhaps world bosses, OPs and flashpoints, also make a PvP level from scratch, higher level you are more PVP skills you can unlock stationary turret gunner skill, builders skills , armoured vehicle license skills, social "battle" sets, no higher PVP level has any benefit from low level players, It's all what you can use and wear that matters, no magic buffs just because you have 100 more level than that other guy.
I would also like they keep the planets and the stories as they are but like in space there are also alerts on the ground, such as on Taris a republic assult is on It's way and you see them go into empire controlled territory you can either help fight them off or go on about your business either way that alert is happening anyway, these kind of alerts will make the planets and space feel more alive and less static as it is now.
And the carrot for all these alerts is of course reputations to be able to barter better stuff and hopefully get rare items at the end.
Yes I know I can dream but I think It will make the game feel more like a living star wars galaxy.
Comments
If you build the other systems around this design, you get an experience that feels fluid and responsive. One thing you have to avoid is predictability. If the cycle is very straight forward and represents the majority of the gameplay, it can get boring real quick. I think GW2 does this fairly well, where the dynamic cycle is merely an outline for what additional content is available (i.e. if your army is on defense, you get access to X number of additional events).
It works in GW2 relatively fine because the quest design was build to accommodate this. There are no quest per se, but rather events people take part in. Everything you do in GW2 is an event with loose win conditions, rarely do you participate in a "go to this exact spot, kill this exact thing" situation. Games that are quest based (such as SWTOR) usually have a harder time implementing dynamic events, as it feels tacked on and in competition with the quest system itself.
The space part of SWTOR is in a very conflicted spot. The ships were intentionally planned as player housing, which was quickly moved aside to introduce actual housing. The space battle mini game was probably not well received, as they created a completely new version of it in form of the PvP space battles. I completely agree with you that this is a missed opportunity and could use a major overhaul. As it is now though, the spaceship is something completely irrelevant and the travel itself is unnecessary. Before they start implementing any sort of dynamic space encounters, they should come up with a framework that makes space an integral part of the whole experience - this would include making space travel important (as it is now, you really only travel after you have completed a planet and are moving to the next one).
Then again, SWTOR is a very linear theme park game, with focus on a story-driven experience, so it may not be in their best interest to do any of this.
What's going on is a trend in MMO's that the more complicated the game the better it is. Of course one day the pendulum will swing back to the other side and someone will make a very simple and addictive MMO that will be a great success, and everyone will copy it as the greatest new thing.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
But I also have played SWG and every time SWTOR hits me in the face with how it destroys any immersion. The story of some classes sets you up for a nice experience, but then when you visit planets like Nar Shadda and Coruscant. And you notice how they are nothing but pretty looking facades in front of some generic looking corridors. And then you realise how instead they could have been actually a large city planet to explore.
All the 'planets' are noticably game maps with small pockets of quest specific mobs. There is no world and nothing looks like it could actually be inhabitable. Which destroys the relative good (for a MMO) storylines for me.