SWTOR

[Mezlo]

Anyone out there playing this currently, or have played it in the past? What's your opinion of it? I like the premise, adn have talked with two of my gaming buddies and they are loving it. I'm at a point in FFXIV where the only think left to do is dungeon raids, and I'm looking for another game to play when I'm tired of raids. Anyways, just wanted to get your guys' opinions of the game. I did a forum search, and there were no posts that I could find on this which makes me a bit hesitant. The forums over flow with opinions and takes on all sorts of games, and I'm wondering why this one was skipped...

[Firewind]

re: SWTOR

KOTOR is generally well loved and respected even by people who dislike Bioware RPGs. Given how ridiculously cheap it is to get from Steam the only thing I can say it pick it up to see if you like it.

One warning: the battle and level up systems will take some getting used to if you never played 3rd edition D&D. It's basically 3.0E D&D but all the weapons now have futuristic names.

[Hayde]

re: SWTOR

Are you talking about "KOTOR" or "SWTOR"? Because it sounds like you're talking about the MMO, and not the RPG that was released several years ago...

[Mezlo]

re: SWTOR

I'm talking about the MMO game, so OOPS! If a mod can change the name of the thread to reflect the question I meant to ask. So yes, all my questions about SWTOR.

[Firewind]

Re: SWTOR

Ah ok, the title was originally about KOTOR hence why I went on about that.

I play SWTOR and I have fun with it. The game is pretty well balanced and the launch was probably the most smooth of any MMO to date. For a brand new MMO there's also a lot of stuff to do. A lot of the complaints due to lack of content are usually from people comparing it to MMOs that have been out for years like WoW. A lot of other complaints are usually from your typical MMO forum whiners. It's hard to describe it as anything other than a very solid release really. I can send you a free trial code if you want to try it out before buying.

SWTOR doesn't actually add anything new to the MMO genre. Everything in it has been done by other MMOs before. But it is a very well made, very well balanced and fun MMO. Basially only two Classes have builds that are blatantly overpowered in Group vs Group PvP but one is being rebalanced (Trooper and Bounty Hunter's cross class skill tree) and the other is thankfully not that well known(Jedi Shadow/Sith Assassin's Stealth Tank build). But if you don't PvP then none of that matters.

If you want a trully bad thing about SWTOR: Everything can be done solo. That means there's 0 incentive to group. Actually you are PUNISHED for grouping by getting less XP (it's supposed to be balanced by you being able to kill more mobs but nobody ever kills more than exactly the number they need) and having to compete for loot. You can get yourself geared for endgame contant entirely solo as well and since you can get the equivalent of raid quality gear, you end up with people in full Best in Slot gear who have no clue at all as to how to play their class in a Raid Environment. Basically it's the least social MMO out there and it clearly panders to the "Casual Console Shooter" crowd. It's also pretty obvious that there's no community outside of the Roleplay Servers. The game IS fun but getting people to group with you on PVE and PVP servers is never going to happen if you don't have a guild.

I have characters on Lord Adrass (US) and The Progenitor (EU). LA is best and the Republic side has some of the nicest and msot friendly people you could imagine online, but sucks if you don't live in a US time zone as on that server I personally have to stay up until 2-4am to get anything done. The Progenitor is also a good server but it's stupidly cliquish so if you can't find a guild right away you're better off just going to another server. If you make a character on one of those let me know. And as I said above, I can send you a friend pass since all the IRL friends I have who have interest in the game, I've sent passes to or can't run the game.

[Mezlo]

Re: SWTOR

I am interested and would love the free pass. I'm in San Diego, so I'd probably be leaning towards the LA server. I'm not sure how the free pass thing works. Do I still need to go buy the game first ion order to use it? (I know, probably a dumb question...) After reading the different classes, I think I'd be leaning towards the Jedi Consular, or the Jedi Knight. I would want to take a light saber over a gun any day. Does the game let you deflect incoming blaster shots? It seems like it would have to, or the bounty hunter class would jsut pick you apart from afar. Can you switch classes in-game similar to ffxi, or are you locked in with the class you pick the entire time?

[Taskmage]

Re: SWTOR

I played for about three months. Firewind sums it up pretty well. There's a lot of very good content and it's fun to play, but the social experience is lacking.

[Mezlo]

Re: SWTOR

In the 3 months you played, were you able to unlock the advance classes? Which one did you enjoy playing more? Did you get involved in any of the PvP or PvE, or due to the lack of socializing, were you doing everything solo?

[Firewind]

Re: SWTOR

Basically tank classes get deflector shields that acts as thier "Block". Guardians, Shadows and Vanguards all have a tanking tree. And yes if a range attack is evaded, Jedi are shown as deflecting it with thier lightsaber. Smugglers and Agents are shown dodging the shot, while Bounty Hunters and Troopers have the shot bounce off thier armour.

You are locked in to your Alternate Class when you hit Lv10 but each class has different skill tree like in Diablo or WoW. You can respec at any time though there is a cost to do it if you do it multiple times.

Jedi Knight gets two trees: Guardian and Sentinel. Consular gets Sage and Shadow. Each class has three trees.

Guardian - Can tank or DD
Defence - Tanking tree. Uses melee attacks and force abilities for damage mitigation and crowd control. Closest FFXI class to it would be the Paladin
Vigilance - DD tree. Mostly focuses on physical attacks. Feels a lot like SAM. Hits like a truck it geared for properly.
Focus - Cross class tree with Sentinel. It's a melee-force hybrid and feels a lot like a DRK or DD NIN

Sentinel - Can only DD but has a lot of utility and some very good group buffs.
Watchman - DD tree and probably the most versatile one in the game. Has very high survivability, mobility and sustained damage via DoTs. Good damage prevention abilities. Burst damage is meh though. Can basically spam it's group buff though so you will want at least one Watchman in your raid. Feels a lot like DNC/NIN in that you will always love one in your group but it takes time for the damage numbers to ramp up (and once it does WATCH OUT). This is also your dedicated "Caster Killer" for PvP.
Combat - DD tree. Focuses on the big burst damage numbers. Okay mobility. This is basically your "I hit for HOW MUCH?" tree. Basically WAR, MNK or DRK in the huge numbers it puts out.
Focus -Cross class tree with Guardian. It's a melee-force hybrid and feels a lot like a DRK or DD NIN

Sage - Incredably versatile Force user class. Can pretty much fit into any role save tanking and do it well. ALL Sage trees have fantastic crowd control so they are very popular in groups even if you aren't specced for healing.
Seer - Healer tree. It's basically WHM/SCH except Sublimation doesn't cost HP (this is getting nerfed in the next patch though since it made Sage stupidly overpowered as a healer), and Stoneskin can be cast on other people. Is still capable of throwing out respectable damage if the fight is going well.
Telekinesis - Basically the Black Mage nuking tree except instead of elemental magic you mind rape people and tear up the place with your mind, and throw bits of the scenary at people, and cause earthquakes and stuff.
Balance - Cross class tree with Shadow. Technically it's a melee/force hybrid but in reality it's just not safe for a Balance Sage to be meleeing. Great sustained damage via DoTs and channeled abilities and good all round AoE. I guess it's like SCH.

Shadow - The real Force/Melee hybrid. Basically imagine a RDM/NIN. Great crowd control due to them sharing a lot of abilities with Sage.
Kinetic Combat - Tanking tree. I don't have much experience with playing it though. I have notice that Shadows I heal take very little damage and they're a nightmare to take down on PvP though.
Infiltration - Bacially the Ninja class. Stealth, nice burst damage, decent sustained damage, can throw out force abilities to do a little bit of nuking.
Balance - Cross class tree with Sage. Is better as being a Melee-Force hybrid due to having access to better melee fighting and survivability skills. This is basically your Red Mage spec since it does a bit of everything though pure melee or pure force specialists will out perform it.

You can of course go for Hybrid builds. Sages have a very popular Telekinesis/Balance build which can only be described as "SCH with the ability to proc instant cast -ga spells nearly contantly". Yes it is as horribally overpowered as it sounds but thankfully it's being nerfed in the upcoming patch.

[Taskmage]

Re: SWTOR

You will unlock your advanced class on the first or second night. You choose your specialization at level 10. I played as a tank trooper (vanguard) and as a healer inquisitor (sorcerer) and I enjoyed them both a lot. Healing has a little more depth than I'm used to from rdm and whm, but it becomes very rinse-and-repeat as you might expect. Vanguard had a lot more variety in play, since a lot of your abilities are situational to your distance to the enemy, number of enemies, whether they're in cover or not, etc etc. I can't really say I enjoyed one more than the other though since my Sorcerer was much more entertaining as a character. Being Sith obviously there's a lot more moral ambiguity, whereas my very straight-laced trooper was a lot more predictable and dull in conversation.

I played a fair bit of PvP. There were only three maps when I played, one of which, Huttball, I deeply hate. As my sorc became more focused on healing I enjoyed PvP with her less and less. As powerful as a tank+healer combo is in PvP, in random groups I rarely found anyone smart enough to use their abilities to defend me, so the other team would see me healing and just gank me over and over again. As a tank it was a million times more fun, since I had the tools to control the battlefield, the durability to hold out for backup, and the intelligence to protect healers for mutual invincibility.

As for the PvE raid content, I did about the first five or so Flashpoints. The first one blew me away with its story integration and the way it played out slightly differently every time I ran it. The ones I did after than were okay. They have some interesting combat challenges and I like the way they make your crafting skill choices relevant as well, but none of them had the amount of replayability and story. I think that gets a bit better later on, but I never did any FPs after Boarding Party and haven't watched the spoiler vids, so I can't confirm.

90% of the time on my sorc I was solo. There are certain quests that require a group, and they drop better loot, but between completing every solo quest, PvP and space missions I was always way over-levelled for the areas my story took me to, and I could always craft much better gear than what I got from quest rewards, so it felt like a big waste of time to sit around and LFG for the group stuff rather than just moving on. With my trooper I was always duo with a RL friend of mine. His DD-focused gunslinger and sniper companion made a great team with my tank and healer companion, but the thing is, the content didn't really react appropriately to our grouping. The solo quests were always pathetically easy, because they're already easy for a solo player, and for the same reason as my sorc we rarely did any content that required more than 2 players.

[Firewind]

Re: SWTOR

Endgame content is fun but is pretty buggy. The same team that worked in SWTOR is the team that made Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online. So you you can probably guess how broken some boss battles can get. SOA in Eternity Vault is the most amusing one since he can randomly bug out and wipe the party before you even engage him because he might decide to be a dick and drop the platforms you're standing on before that phase of the fight (think Diabolos in FFXI in how the platforms drop).

That said the boss fights in SWTOR are a lot of fun. There is a learning curve which is good and while they are eaiser than FFXI's boss fights, there is a degree of challenge. One boss i nthe Eternity Vault Raid is a flat out puzzle boss and the final boss in the Jedi Kngiht storyline can actually be compeltely bypassed if you know what you are doing.

Basically the endgame bosses in SWTOR favour preparation, corodination and positioning which is a refreshing change from the typical "Tank and Spank with an instant wipe mechanic you have to dodge and/or abitrary rage timer" like in games like WoW.

---------- Post added at 08:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:49 PM ----------

As a note I have about 20 Friend Invites left so if anyone else would like a referral let me know. It just gives me some bonus cosmetic unlocks they will be adding later but it's not as if it's hard for me to send referrals to a dozen fake e-mail adresses and setting up fake accounts with them to get them like you can with WoW and Rift XD