Small changes that would rise SWTOR above competition!

SWTOR is doing good since launch. The first couple of days were a blast for BW that show more than 2million copies sold. In the past 3 months, bugs have been corrected, issues have been addressed and the game is polished enough with some exceptions of course.


Some would say that SWTOR is doing fine and everything is great but... even I really enjoy the game, there are some things that should be changed. Guild Wars 2 are coming this year, in a month more or less people would play Diablo 3 and last but not least, Mist of Pandaria is somewhere in the horizon. 1.2 is good, would make the game better overall, but would definitely won't save SWTOR against competitors. There are things that should be done, I'm sure Bioware has some ace hidden in their sleeves but if they don't use them in time, SWTOR will fail. I'm not saying that it won't be good anymore, I'm saying that EA, Lucas Arts and Bioware wanted to make the best and most successful MMO and with 2million subscribers you can't say that they'll reached their goal. If they don't kill the competition soon enough, they won't make it. Now, here some ideas that would make SWTOR better in my opinion.


I've put this post in the official site, please visit, read and comment: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3740918#post3740918


1) Competitive, balanced high level PvP. Don't be afraid to make the game a e-sport. Ranked warzones must be something that would make people want to play the game. A competitive PvP player base would generally help improve the status of the game and would attract more subscribers.


2) Links to stream in www.swtor.com . Pay people to stream to educate others. People that play for lots and lots of hours everyday, people that are good with their class would help and educate worse players. See what Swifty, Hydra, Athene for example are doing to WoW. That's free advertisement!


3) Custom PvP and Tournaments once in a while with big prizes. Promote tournament streaming and make events where the best players will compete with each other.


4) More customisation in the UI. Macros are a must, better ops portraits to help healers, Power Auras and finally ADD ONS! You should restrict add-ons from the official site as to control and permit which ones should be used, something like the Apple Store (but free). By giving tools to the players, you can make harder and more challenging PvE content.


5) A LFG tool There's tons and tons of content, many Flashpoints and I see very few people doing any. Seriously, I am not bothered in creating a group from the general channel but LFG is necessary. I don't care if it would be cross-server or not, it would help people jump in a group and spent their time playing the game, instead of searching for a group. Let people vote for MVP or something after last boss and give prizes for good tanks, good healers and good damage dealers. It could be something like credits, commendations, crafting materials or a shorter queue time for the next Flashpoint.


6) Instead of dailies solo quests, create big ass hard quest that need 2 players to complete. Create something like a smaller scale of a Flashpoint that would take several time for players to complete. It could be done to a new planet, in a group-phase area with mobs to kill, puzzles to solve and some bosses that would require some team play to kill. You don't have to create many of those, just a single one that would have a different enemies, puzzles and bosses each day. That way, people won't get bored and would have something to spent their time.


Those are my suggestions, I really want to hear you opinions and thoughts

SWTOR PTR: 1.2 Patch UI Changes Video Guide

1.2 has hit PTR for a some hours now and I'm rushing myself to more future contend. I want to hit level 10 ASAP to try the new Warzone so, instead of a big article, I've created a video about the changes in the UI.

Hopefully you'll find this guide helpful, stay tuned for more information about 1.2.

PvE Tier 2 Preview!

This is the previer of PvE Tier 2 Preview from Guild Summit's video

Republic

Empire

Add-ons, Combat Log, Cross-Server, Ranked PvP coming soon in SWTOR!

Game Amatangelo gave an interview to an Australian site and said this things:

Gear/Warzone/Commendation Changes
-Lesser end-game commendations (Champion, Centurion, etc.) will not be exchangable.
-There will be two levels of warzones. Regular and Ranked warzones.
-Regular warzones will give out regular WZ commendations, and Ranked warzones will give out ranked WZ commendations.
-New intro PVP set for new level 50 players to fill gap in gear.
-There will be some “fun” uses for commendations you dont need anymore.

Ranked PVP
-Phase one will be server specific.
-Phase two (coming in the future) will have cross-server queuing.

UI Changes & Add- ons
-Combat log coming soon.
-DPS meters/Parsers will be done by 3rd party addons via combat log.
-Free/Paid Server transfers are being worked on but no date provided. They want to make sure the process is perfect before releasing this.

Cross-Server Queuing
-Coming in phase two of pvp changes
-Priority is on playing with people from your own server.
-As soon as you start choosing certain things (which warzone, ranked, etc.). It becomes more difficult for you to get a WZ with server players so you go into the cross-server

When he says phase two he means after patch 1.2 that is meant to come this month. I don't know about you guys but I'm very excited about this changes! Especially for Add ons that were much needed from hardcore players

SWTOR UI Suggestions!

Waiting for 1.2, there aren't many things to write about right now so I decided to do something else. I decided to write some suggestions for the game. This time, I'm presenting my though for the UI. Don't forget to comment, I really want to hear your ideas.

UI Changes

Right now, SWTOR’s UI is nothing more than a basic UI. I was positive surprised when I saw how fast you implanted more options for the UI in weekly and major patches. There are things that need to be changed though.

1. Threat and Aggro.

When I’m tanking with my Juggernaut, I want be able to know if I have enough aggro from the mobs I’m fighting. Please, if you can implant add a bar above the enemies’ portrait with the percentage of the thread I’m generating. Even better, make the mobs’ portrait that are attacking me red, the mobs’ portrait that I’m losing aggro yellow and mobs’ portrait that are not attacking me grey. An additional flash of screen’s corners could help dps know that have pulled aggro. I really hope that this addition would be implanted soon.

2. Visual Procs.

It’s a little frustrating figuring out that your abilities have procced. To begin with most classes’ rotations are based on buffs. Even though the current place of the buffs are convenient (much better above the portraits than the upper corner of the screen) it’s hard to track it down. I would really really want my procs to be visually highlighted to the middle of my screen when they are up. I’ve made a small example, sorry for the bad Windows Paint skill. I’ve attached the photos. Some classes will benefit a lot by visual proc indicator more than others. Operatives would know how many stacks of Tactical Advantage they have and if after using Lacerate they regain their stack when Tactical Opportunity procs, Mercenaries would better track how long the Supercharge Gas last. Also display targets’ and focus’ buffs and debuffs as duration bars. That way I’ll know if the tank has the buff Kolto Residue that would increase my healing done to him and how much is left. That would also help dps that would be able to calculate their rotations easier, knowing how much they got left before their DoT drops from their target. I really think this as one of the top priority additions and I really hope to be applied as soon as possible.

2. Move bars.

Please allow us to determine both the size, the position of the quickbars. Plus, let us make the two sidebars horizontal and then to be able to stack them on top of the center ones. I want to have all of my quickbars stacked so I will be able to track the cds of my abilities easier.

3. Raid UI.

Raid UI is actually pretty good. That doesn’t mean that couldn’t be better, especially for healers. Please make it so that I can know how much my healing abilities would heal my allies. Keep the current health red in the bars and make the incoming healing being indicated as a darker red. That way I would know if other healer is casting his heals to my target and if his heals will top his health so I can either cast him a weaker healing spell or heal another person. On top of that, I would love the raid bars to change color when someone is affected by a negative effect. That way I would be able to know to whom I have to use my Cure ability (my merc’s ability).

4. Casting Bar.

The casting bar is doing its job fine; just make it so I can adjust the size of it. Plus make displayable the amount of time spent between cast send and start events, in the form of a bar at the end of your casting bar, with optional text that displays the actual duration of the lag. That way I would know how to queue my abilities and would also help avoiding canceling channeling abilities that are interrupted by me because I had a lag spike that prevented me from seeing the proper time left to my ability’s activation time.