6341

Really? The 5 minute run to your ship, the load screen to get to space, the load screen to go someplace else, the 5 minute run off your ship, the load screen…that doesn’t feel clunky to you?

I don’t disagree that spaceships are necessary, I would just really rather have them, and fly them(even in an abstracted sense, like STO) than pilot loading screens

I’ve never found myself muttering at or about the load screen, if that’s what you mean. There’s not a more natural-seeming progression from one planet to another. You’re not walking around on a continent where things would flow organically from one area to the next. Each planet is basically nothing like the one next to it and the way people travel in the universe is how they travel in the game, basically. I guess that’s not one-click convenient all the time.

Could they give you a longer transition travel cutvid? I suppose so. They have decent ones as it is. Maybe my computer has better load times, but I’ve never found it objectionable. Perhaps they could do something so that there’s no load time when boarding your ship (as opposed to traveling to a planet). I do think that would be a nice improvement. It could be loading in the background the moment you enter the spaceport or something.

Do I like running through space ports? Not really. But, again, it’s a convention of the universe. You fly to a planet, you get off your ship, you go somewhere on the planet once you’ve landed at the spaceport. They’re time sinks, that’s true, but they’re also “natural” ones.

One of the longest distances you will ever have to run in a spaceport is to your ship on Coruscant when you get it for the first time, and (at least in the JK’s case) they have never sent me back to that planet since. That spaceport seems unduly large compared to the others (but some airports are larger than others; I suppose Coruscant’s would be the largest), and the one time you’re running through it is to get your ship for the first time. There’s a sense of anticipation that (for me) outweighed the distance involved.

But I generally don’t run in them when leaving a planet or at the end of the night. I buy fleet passes, so maybe I don’t notice it as much. To me, it seems like the arrival on planet is almost a kind of progression to get “into” a given area of the game.

There are exceptions, obviously. I’m not above using a fleet pass to leave a planet quickly, take the ship to some planet, and QT to a spot on the planet (to participate in a heroic or group with someone or something).

One thing I don’t like is the speed of the respawning of NPCs in some areas. You fight your way into an area, clear it, get to an instance entry or something, accomplish things there, and then emerge to find that you have to fight your way out again. QT tends to solve that (unless you’re on a cooldown for it). But I’ve also used QT to leave an area, only to realize I failed to do some mission objective related thing there and have to slog all the way back through it to accomplish what I should have accomplished before I left in the first place.

6342

It could be that Mulgore flowed into the barrens, flowed into ashenvale, flowed into felwood, flowed into winterspring, but it all felt connected. You never saw a loading screen unless you went into an instance or switched continents. I dont get that same sense in SWTOR. Each area feels completely isolated and disconnected from the rest of the game world, and the means of travel between those disparate chunks feels clunky and contrived.

Ya, but it’s kind of hard to do that when the different areas consist of different planets throughout the galaxy.

You can’t really walk from one planet to the other.

6343

Is it the loading screens that are the disruption? What if it were only cutscenes that you could spacebar through?

I agree that landing bays are a waste of time and resources. They could have easily made it that exiting your ship put you in the spaceport proper. But at least instances are seamless.

6344

But you could go to the hanger, get on your ship, fly to another planet, get off and be on that planet without the screen going dark 4 times and a lengthy loading screen. It’s really bad and I can’t believe there’s so much defense for it.

6345

I completely agree.

I’m not sure anyone is defending it, more like indifferent or accepting of it. I don’t see how anyone could possibly come up with a argument for abundant loading screens.

6346

I’m not sure “defend” is the right word. I understand why things are laid out the way they are. I don’t find it irritating. I’m sure at some point down the line, I might. By that point, they’ll have probably added even further ways around it. Mounts in spaceports or being dropped at the entrance to the spaceport or taxi stations right at the doors to spaceports or whatever else.

Certain things, like load times for entire planets, are going to be unavoidable (and these exist in other games). Things like load times for the interior of your ship can probably be minimized, and perhaps eventually will be.

6347

Some of the load times are amazingly long, which is odd. I have a BH sitting on Tatooine who does slicing. He’s kind of on the shelf since I’ve been enjoying my Sorc and IAs so much, but I still log him in fairly often to make slicing runs. It takes so long for Tatooine to load that I’ve considered parking him in his ship until I’m ready to start leveling him again.

Maybe it’s because it’s such a large planet and they load every inch of it into memory, I’m not sure. Nar Shadda takes quite a bit too. In contrast, Balmorra and Taris are both relatively quick, even though Taris feels larger than Nar Shadda.

The load times aren’t enough to make me throw my mouse at the screen, but Tatooine is long enough that I can go make a sandwhich in the time it takes to load.

6348

Spaceport->Hangar->Ship->Hangar->Spaceport. It’s ridiculous, I keep looking for a quick teleport back to my ship and I can’t find it. 24 hour fleet pass is the best I can find on top of the 30 min port.

I am further annoyed by not being able to use my speeder in certain hangars and ports. I noticed for the imperial fleet they made a change last patch so you have easier access to your ship’s hangar. That was appreciated, but they still need to stream line it further.

6349

You can buy fleet passes for 1k credits which really isn’t much.

6350

Here’s a real annoyance: if your group wipes inside an instance, you’re given the option to revive “at the area start”. This actually means your respawn at the portal outside the instance, not the start of the instance itself. So you wipe, click revive, get a loading screen as the non-instanced part of the world loads, respawn in front of the instance portal, take two steps towards it, then get another loading screen. This was super painful last night when the group I was in was attempting a hard mode flashpoint and wiping every few minutes as we tried to learn the boss fights. Why not just respawn players inside the instance and skip the loading screens completely?

6351

I really hated when I finished chapter 1 and they made me fly all over the place to talk to people. Hanger->Ship->Fly to Korriban->Hanger->Spaceport->Shuttle->Newbie Zone->talk to 1 guy->Shuttle->Spaceport->Hanger->Ship->Fly to Taris->Hanger->Spaceport… all for 1 conversation to move the quest along. That one was a little much. Oh, there is also a part that says “Fly to the Fleet and speak to X”. Thinking I was clever, I instead used my fleet pass. Nope, turns out you HAVE to fly to the Fleet or the quest won’t advance. I had to actually board my ship at the fleet, fly to a random planet and fly back to the Fleet so the quest would trigger… then speak to 1 person who sends me to Dromand Kass.

Luckily that is the only time I’ve run into that situation. If I have to do that more than once per character, I may have to walk down the street to the EA office in Playa del Rey and leave a flaming bag of poo at the front door. Yeah, they have nothing to do with Bioware’s development, but it would make me feel better.

6352

Is a man not entitled to semi-automated travel through MMO worlds? “No!” says the man in Alberta. “Sit down and navigate giant empty rooms so you can meet our playtime quota, Chester.” But “Yes,” says the man in Irvine. “We know the travel part is boring but we can’t give you quick travel everywhere all the time, so why don’t you talk to the flight master and go make a sandwich while we do this part for you?”

6353

You’re right, there’s absolutely no other way they could have done the transition from planetside to space which would have been more compelling.

It’s only Space travel.

That’s pretty hard to make fun. If only there was someone who could make a fun game about space travel…If only, there was something fun you could do IN SPACE. Oh well, i can dream.

6354

The back and forth missions are annoying, but I can’t be the only one here who likes going to the hangar and seeing my awesome ship. I know instant travel in MMOs has spoiled us over the years, but travel’s fast enough in SWTOR that I don’t mind having to actually board my ship to use it.

6355

I would settle for a fast travel portal in my ship.

Oh and why DO I need to fly into space every time I board my ship?

6356

Eh. The space minigame is quite fun. But I managed the final (“hardest”) minigame with half vendor and half bought components, and two of the four add-ons (ECM and distributor, not proton torpedos/EMP).

And now…I have no real incentive to keep playing it. Shrug.

6357

And now…I have no real incentive to keep playing it. Shrug.

The highest tier of space daily missions reward about 10k credits each. That’s a pretty decent money-maker for the time required to complete them, and they’re a good way to mix up activities if you get bored with regular quests.

6358

They announced shortly after release they’ll be adding more missions soon in addition to coop and PVP missions.

6359

I have 2 million credits from selling stuff on the AH :)

And honestly, essentially I’m not really keen on the end game stuff. I’ll level a republic character and then quit probably - the UI is seriously annoying me. (Does remind me why I stuck with WoW, especially for healing…)

Sepiche - Yea, as and when if I’m still playing I’ll try them. It’s more that there’s only a few missions there, repeated several times. I can already do them and hit almost all the bonuses, so… (I mean, I did the hardest mission twice, both times I finished on 5-10% hull, but I DID finish it…)

6360

I am enjoying Scoundrel healing, even with the bad UI and responsiveness issues. It’s fun to play something that works a little differently. It’s not amazing or groundbreaking, just interesting. I like skirting the line between “full of mana and never running out” and “instantly, totally out of mana for a long time.” The line between the two is very, very thin. Unfortunately it doesn’t leave much room for increasing your output during emergency situations; only a few things you can do in those situations.

It’s not as fun as healing hardmode raids in wotlk as a druid, or as fun as healing the heroic dungeons in rift as a chloromancer, but I certainly enjoy the change of pace.

edit: I’ve done plenty of pvp healing and flashpoints, but I haven’t done any pve ops healing yet in swtor. Looking forward to it though.