SWTOR

much of the outcry over the combat system has been unwarranted. aside from some of the abilities misfiring (that one merauder attack comes to mind) the combat system was fine. people's energy would have been better spent criticizing the bigger issues like the lifeless, rehashed zones and the lack of end-game and group content.

swtor's biggest selling point was its variety of class stories but they're not worth exploring because you visit the same god damn areas every time. the game just doesn't have long-term appeal and that's why it's a failure.

Nope, class stories havent changed any since launch.

I finished up a Sith Inquisitor yesterday and still have another class or two Id like to level up to see their stories, but Im not giving them another dime until they work out some bugs in their system. I decided to be lazy when it came to unlocking legacy stuff and tried to buy some cartel coins to do it with. I say "try" because as of tomorrow it will be three weeks to the day I bought the coins, but they still havent appeared in game yet. They show in my ledger, support swears that there is some magical script running through all accounts pushing coins from ledgers to in game but fuck if ive seen it.

Ive bought coins other than that batch and they appeared instantly also. Something about that order, I dunno and apparently neither do they.

supertouch_sl said:

much of the outcry over the combat system has been unwarranted. aside from some of the abilities misfiring (that one merauder attack comes to mind) the combat system was fine. people's energy would have been better spent criticizing the bigger issues like the lifeless, rehashed zones and the lack of end-game and group content.

swtor's biggest selling point was its variety of class stories but they're not worth exploring because you visit the same god damn areas every time. the game just doesn't have long-term appeal and that's why it's a failure.

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You shitting me, there were tons of combat sluggishness issues. Lots of attacks that just totallys topped you in your tracks and slowly fired, despite being instant, lots of abilities that had just generally random activation times totally dictated by animations.

I played a Trooper to max level at release - there were all kinds of issues. You heavily noticed them if you PVP'd or did any of the raids. My biggest gripe was that the Bounty Hunter was better than the Trooper simply because the BH abilities (which are suppose to be mirrored) were quicker than that of the Troopers. The same issues were across some of the other classes, as well. Stop raiding and continue your raid tomorrow? Now when you zone back in, half your raid is going to be in a completely new instance but with the same Raid Bosses killed. Much less, do the majority of encounters actually work like they are suppose to. No proper LFG tool. Encounters with a DPS race (HK for example)? Better not allow addons that tell you who can improve. The overall fact that the Graphics engine was a big pile of shit didnt help either. Hell, I really dont know why the hell I liked this game as much as I did now that I think about it. The theme of the game is what was this games saving grace, I believe.

Logged in, realized I had to pay for additional quickbars, logged out and uninstalled. Limit of like 10 warzones per week as well? Stupidest F2P ever.

Did they ever balance marauders/sentinels?

So I saw in the final patch notes from 1.6 that you can buy the highest ship armor in the cartel market. Kills cybertech and because heroic space missions give daily and black hole coms represents the first, albeit miniscule or worthless, time any endgame activity has been directly influenced by purchaseable, equipable items.

Also instead of getting a life day event (you know...the only holiday every fucking Star Wars nerd knows), we got life day goodies for space bucks!!! Fuck that. Also purchaseable fireworks!! Subs get a free taste of the fireworks though.

They're oiling that slippery slope hard!

This is why I'll always be against FTP. These fuckers are greedy!

Caeden_sl said:

So I saw in the final patch notes from 1.6 that you can buy the highest ship armor in the cartel market. Kills cybertech and because heroic space missions give daily and black hole coms represents the first, albeit miniscule or worthless, time any endgame activity has been directly influenced by purchaseable, equipable items.

Also instead of getting a life day event (you know...the only holiday every fucking Star Wars nerd knows), we got life day goodies for space bucks!!! Fuck that. Also purchaseable fireworks!! Subs get a free taste of the fireworks though.

They're oiling that slippery slope hard!

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When I saw those items on the market (along with everything else, LOL on a speeder with christmas, sorry Life day lights), I had mixed feelings but it doesn't really break the cardinal rule of putting items of power for sale that aren't also accessible through other means. Basically, it's sort of the Freemium model that games like Rage of Bahamut use where if you want to be competitive NOW, you pony up the cash, but if you're cool to wait, you can get there as well.

The new space missions are balls hard too. So what if people want to pay to get the items without having to work for them. Given that Space has no impact outside of your individual character, it's not that big of a deal in the end.

New "Pack" out today which has some new stuff. Weapons with particle effects and the Reven outfit. The new WZ is pretty cool too. *shrug* A year after release and I'm still having fun.

moontayle_sl said:

When I saw those items on the market (along with everything else, LOL on a speeder with christmas, sorry Life day lights), I had mixed feelings but it doesn't really break the cardinal rule of putting items of power for sale that aren't also accessible through other means. Basically, it's sort of the Freemium model that games like Rage of Bahamut use where if you want to be competitive NOW, you pony up the cash, but if you're cool to wait, you can get there as well.

The new space missions are balls hard too. So what if people want to pay to get the items without having to work for them. Given that Space has no impact outside of your individual character, it's not that big of a deal in the end.

New "Pack" out today which has some new stuff. Weapons with particle effects and the Reven outfit. The new WZ is pretty cool too. *shrug* A year after release and I'm still having fun.

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Just wait. You'll be able to buy your gear soon. This is the worst implementation of FTP. Greedy as all hell.

They've probably been given a "You must raise X income this quarter or Bad Shit Happens" ultimatum by EA and they're taking the lazy way out. Bioware are not exactly flavour of the month with EA right now.

Flipmode_sl said:

Just wait. You'll be able to buy your gear soon. This is the worst implementation of FTP. Greedy as all hell.

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You can buy gear now. There was a big stink about level 50 crystals being in the packs (usable a 10) and for sale (usable at 35) because the stats off those are superior to anything else you can get at those levels. BW basically came out and said it ended up not making much of a difference in the grand scheme of things (it's all the same at 50), and the boost at lower levels isn't anything to really write home about. You can talk about the slippery slope all you want but they're avoiding it so far. Whether this is true in the future remains to be seen but when they talk about items on the Cartel market the P2W, buy the items to be competitive aspect is something they're publicly saying they're careful to guard against.

They're making a lot of money off the packs. While I'm not one to gamble, some people are and this morning after the servers came up general chat was littered with people linking items they got. One guy said he bought 20 packs which is something like $45 or so in Cartel Coins. I'd bet my pre-1.2 white crystal that he's not alone. It'll be interesting to see how this impacts their revenue stream, but we likely won't know until the April report.

I don't know. I wish those cartel items were placed out in the world. Mounts and pets, fine. Items to make me look cool? Wish I had to farm for those.

I still like the game but I'm the ideal target: still enjoys wow and a certifiable Star Wars nut. That said, the heroic space missions give coms so in theory they've done an ever so slight p2w. It's miniscule at best but the fact that grinding those items out was artificially inflated to force you to buy the packs left a bad taste in my mouth.

Right now, I'm getting the same gameplay (better actually in terms of technical smoothness and overall creativity) from Mists and feeling less "abused." I canceled my sub last night. The lack of a real life day event was more the issue than the space gear but the writing is on the wall and they're just pushing more and more boundaries. At least gw2 had actual in game content to follow the themed cash shop items.

On top of that, the Grand Acquisition race was the worst in game event I've had the "pleasure" of taking part in between all my time in Rift, Lotro, wow, gw2, and tor. Yet...no simple life day. Not even a wookie to /hug for a codex entry, something an intern could shit out between Slave Leia/padme erotic incest fan fic jerks.

Some of those items used to be in the world and were removed to place in the cash shop. That's the very definition of greed and honestly, fuck them for that.

Disclaimer: I'm not level 50.

I picked this game up a week ago, got a two month sub because I read that f2p is awful for this game, and I've been having a blast. I also really like Star Wars though. There's lots of people leveling up so the world fills full, the graphics are nice, and the story lines engaging for the most part. I don't like the amount of CC available in PVP though.

The game is great for 1 play through, maybe PVP if they ever fix the fucking stunlock issue

I enjoyed troll rolling people on my marauder 3v1. Dunno what current pvp is like but I used to be able to 3-4shot people with all my cooldowns up and still do significant dps after they were down.

Expertise was normalized a bit, soft cap is something like 1100-1200 which is retarded easy to get these days. Don't know when you quit but they redid the entire PvP progression around 1.2. My memory is fuzzy on when exactly but you get a quest from the PvP terminal at 50 which gives you either a full set of Recruit (blue quality) gear. Stats are shit but it has expertise which is the important part. Supposedly. I'm fully min/maxed on my Assassin and I'll rape a Recruit gear anyone in 4-5 globals with Recklessness up (4k Death Field, 3-4k Surging Charge, 4k Shock, (all crits) 4-5k Maul (with a crit), maybe an assassinate to kill them off if the Maul doesn't crit). We pretty much have a good idea on how the matches will go based upon how many people in the group have 13-15k health. When they added this in they made Battlemaster gear straight up purchaseable with Warzone comms, and allowed you to convert 30 of those into 10 Ranked Warzone comms, which you could then use to buy War Hero gear. The gap between Recruit -> BM was Huge and then from BM -> WH was a smaller but still significant jump. Anyone in WH gear was just flat out doing more damage and taking less unless also going up against similar geared people.

That said, the just released 1.6 made a fairly significant change. BM gear was removed and now WH gear is purchasable via regular Warzone comms. This has the effect of making the gear gap smaller overall, though anyone that Min/Maxes is going to have a fairly significant advantage still. The upgrade from WH is now Elite War Hero, and the progression is fairly flat. Total stat upgrades from base WH to base EWH is tiny in comparison to what BM to WH was. Maybe a 2% increase in power.

Current FOTM is Rage/Focus spec for Warriors/Knights. Someone at BW had a hard-on for "fixing" their single target DPS but since that spec revolves around constant use of Smash/Force Sweep, which is AE, it basically caused the effect of making them really fucking powerful, so much so that if you're doing Ranked and you don't have 2 on your team, you're doing it wrong. The other FOTM is Bubble Spec for Sage/Sorc. Up the middle tree there's an ability which tacks on a 3s AE stun to the damage absorb bubble when it pops. This wouldn't be a big deal but it applies to all their bubbles, and the resolve gain on it is broken so it only does a tiny bit. This is another "must have" for ranked. Most of my guild has vowed not to do ranked until they do some more class balancing, which I believe is in line for the 1.7 patch which should be around in February.

The resolve system for PvP is hit and miss. They "fixed" it a couple of content patches ago to be more strategic in its use, though the truth of this is that good players already were using it strategically, and all this "fix" did (which looked at the power of a CC and assigned resolve to the player, and if someone else also threw a CC in while the other one was active it would take into account that a current CC is active before figuring out how much resolve was added), all this fix did was make being a bad player less punishable if they just started throwing CCs around. Being immune still doesn't last long enough and there's the aforementioned Bubble stun problem as well. Oh, and roots/slows are off the resolve table so it can be annoying, especially in huttball.

Oh, and the new WZ they just added is pretty damn fun. Basically objective-based deathmatching with a little bit of CTF thrown in. Hope they get us some new WZs every few months. As much as I have a love/hate relationship with huttball, I'm looking forward to a new map for that.