Hi,

I started playing this game roughly two weeks ago. And while the amount of hours I spent on it surely wouldn't count as casual, my experiences would've been the same if spread out over a longer timeframe. So I decided to make a rather extensive feedback post on my gameplay experiences because I think it is hopefully valuable to the developing team and because I believe these kind of posts are quite rare.

First off I'll start with my background in the genre. As with most I've played world of warcraft. A lot. Totalling more than 600 days played across all my characters since the games inception up til this spring where I decided I was done.

With this in mind a lot of my opinions will be wow-esque and if you have a general problem with that, please refrain from commenting on that, but rather in more specific cases where you would disagree.

I'm dividing the feedback into several sections to distinguish different aspects of the game from one another.

Introduction/leveling

I think the leveling and class story was spot on. I think it really gave an extra depth. Voicacting in certain quests outside the main storyline that are like "go-kill-5-million-boars-quests" is sometimes a little overbearing. but I think you are already aware of that.

The pace I think was good. Not to slow, not too fast. It took me just under 3 days (real days. not gametime) to get to 55. And I could've done a lot faster if I had known my class and if I had skipped surely hours of voice acting. But the cinematics were really enjoyable. Since I subscribed from the bat I can't comment on the f2p leveling speed, but I figure the ideal of this game is to have 100% subscribers and not need the cartel market, right?

In regards to the combat and itemisation both felt really wierd at first, no autoattack really threw me off but I grew to like it. I played a sorcerer so the autoattack quickly lost its importance but I reckon melee classes would rather combo special attacks than build up white damage.

Itemisation was funky at first but I grew to like it. Complex and simple at the same time. But for a brand new mmorpg player I think its introduction was too early.

8/10

Enviroments

The planets and enviroments are stunning. Azeroth looks like a kindergartner drawring compared to the galaxy here. A rock looks like a rock. The clouds look like clouds. And the horizon silhouettes appear really like it is infinite space.

I felt sometimes the enviroment felt a little clunky to move across though, but I guess that's a result of more uneven shapes required to create more realistic feautures.

9.9/10

Gear and armor

Considering it is somewhat already confined; sith and jedi will use lightsabers period. The remaining cast will use guns period. I think the item design crew has fallen short in many aspects.

But before I delve deeper into that I'm going to say that this is the first point in what I would like to call the game fix. Don't devalue looks over gear. The new player who sees the older raider in full epic gear gives incentive to play more, to get the same awesome-looking gear. "A few weeks of flashpoints maybe, then I can raid."

My first complaint here is that it is obvious that the developers recognise the interest in cool looking gear, else items from kotor would not be made and sold for real money. But even that is highly unimaginative, someone already made it.

But considering all the items I've come across myself and to greater extent seen other people wear. Few item sets and gearpieces are really good looking.

It feels like on the armour designer meetings the lead designer begins by writing "SCI-FI" on their whiteboard and then they go just as overboard as blizzard did in Burning Crusade. A lot of the warlock, priest, druid etc sets could easily pass off as a sith inquisitor, jedi consular or w/e. And I'm not saying copy wow, they have better gear. On the contrary. But my point is that you can introduce a lot of cool elements to gear that I feel the design team has shied away from.

Because the looks of gear, really does matter.

3/10

Dailies and reputation

I think the dailies are just fine. The ones on illum, which I learned were designed earlier with repetetive voice acting you skipped every day seems to be replaced by a mission terminal to the newer locations. Good job!

I think the questing hubs in terms of story and enviroment are really, really cool to a tie-in level blizzard has never made. And I think the quests are fairly refreshing. Nothing crazy good but nothing below acceptable.

I think the cap of reputation is retarded however. As I do that the almost exclusive way to gain reputation is through dailies. It serves as far as I see it, no purpose at all. If you want it to take longer/less then make the levels require more points between them.

There's several scenarior why it is bad.

1) The hardcore player who is highly devoted to the game feels hampered.

2) The casual player who maybe can't play every day but maybe a lot more hours during the weekend, and would like a larger boost than the dailies can give then.

Some mobs drop small tokens, I've seen it on Voss and in Section X, but yet to see it on Oricon. Scrap the cap, make the mobs give a small amount of reputation and a chance to drop tokens so that once you have done the dailies you can still get reputation. If you have a problem with it being to fast, then increase the amount you need. This is also a tie-in with the game fix - having something to do will keep players playing the game. Being capped out in two days will not.

7/10 for dailies 5/10 for reputation

Achievements

I was a huge fan of achievements in WoW. Here, I checked it very thoroughly once and said to myself. ***.

Everything is grinding, and believe me, I am not opposed to grinding. I've done all the hardest/most boring/tedious grinds in wow there are but that was because they were special or unique.

Here literally everything is grinding.

I think this is a huge mistake and either pure laziness/lack of corporate resources.

Do it again, do it right. As I said before, achievements should be something people can do when they are bored because they are fun to do. Killing 750 republic on Taris for 10 achievement points, is not fun.

1/10 1 point because there actually is a system atleast.

WORK IN PROGRESS, I'll update more as my raiding gets on aswell as other points. Only done a few at this point. Thank you for your read.

I personally think two main problem of SWTOR (beside the endgame that I still find quite poor in comparison to other game) are : The loot and itemization system and the really bland boss fight on way too many group quest or Flashpoint.

I think itemization sucks because the loot is often completely underwhelming since you are pretty much always up-to-date thanks planetary commendations system. They stack quickly and you can buy mods/upgrade/enhancement on the fleet pretty regularly. Unfortunately, that mean when you loot or receive a quest reward during leveling, it's complete crap 95% of the time. It really kill the satisfying progression feeling. I would like to loot something that make me goes "Wow, awesome, I feel more powerful now" a bit more often. Even if that mean being less well geared rest of the time. Truth is you are already as powerful as your level allow you to be, most of the time.

Second point is, when grouping and doing elite quest or flashpoint with your friend during leveling, the vast majority of boss fight are boring tank-and-spank fight. Nothing inventive, barely any interesting mechanics at all. And barely no puzzle phase before either. Basically, one of the very few exception was the boss for the Dreadseed quest with the explosive barrel and such. Outside these occasional challenge, group boss fight are really disappointing.

Second point is, when grouping and doing elite quest or flashpoint with your friend during leveling, the vast majority of boss fight are boring tank-and-spank fight. Nothing inventive, barely any interesting mechanics at all. And barely no puzzle phase before either. Basically, one of the very few exception was the boss for the Dreadseed quest with the explosive barrel and such. Outside these occasional challenge, group boss fight are really disappointing.

The real problem is simply how easy boss fight are in SM fp and even in HM. One can ignore most mechanics and still survive with how much HPS a heal can get off. In fact it's so easy than I learn more how to DPS in heal spec than to effectively heal infp with competent player.

I have to disagree with you on achievements and gear.

gear is a matter of taste and taste is extremely subjective. I happen to like TOR's aesthetics a great deal and I've been able to create outfits for my legion of alts that differ a lot.

but what TOR has over WoW (and I say that as someone currently subscribing to both) is 1. greater flexibility in a type of armor you can wear since a lot of it, majority of it even is adoptive, so you are not restricted by armor type - can be matched to chest piece color wise - so you will never look like demented clown if you don't want to and speaking of colors, while dye system is not as good as most other games I have personally played - at least there IS a dye system. oh and stats being tied to mods rather than shells means you can have the same look all the way through without having to schlep your way to a major city to transmog your gear every time you get an upgrade. just plop the mods in, anywhere in a world and you are done.

as for weapons. Im not sure what you have been expecting especially coming from WoW. if you were coming from ESO, I'd understand dissatisfaction with limited weapons per class. but WoW is just as restrictive. every class essentially has 2 weapon types they can use (and no, I'm not counting throwbacks like hunters being able to wield daggers or staves - seeing as no self respecting hunter ever would, now that they no longer function as stat sticks). and in TOR - its pretty much the same with some exceptions, but given the range of visuals you can achieve with various weapon models (yes even sabers, through both hilt effects and color crystals).. its tolerable, at least to me.

last but not least. while yes, a lot of achievements are grindy (as they are in WoW - damn you, test of valor, every reputation ever, and don't even get me started on guild achievements), not all of them are. datacrons are not a grind, they are exploration. exploration in general rewards achievements (think explorer title) , boss kills, collections, hidden pet achievements, etc. it could be better, sure. but its not a 100% grind.

and plus... reputation is legacy wide. so you only have to do it once per server, instead of starting over on every single alt you want to get items for, that are bound to that reputation. great reduction in grind there.

that and if you haven't had a chance to appreciate the joy that is ability to mail stuff between your characters, unrestricted, regardless of their faction... its something I would highly recommend

P.S. how the heck did you manage to get to 55 in 3 days without double xp buff and while watching cutscenes? tell me your secret?

I was a huge fan of achievements in WoW. Here, I checked it very thoroughly once and said to myself. ***.

Everything is grinding, and believe me, I am not opposed to grinding. I've done all the hardest/most boring/tedious grinds in wow there are but that was because they were special or unique.

Here literally everything is grinding.

I think this is a huge mistake and either pure laziness/lack of corporate resources.

Do it again, do it right. As I said before, achievements should be something people can do when they are bored because they are fun to do. Killing 750 republic on Taris for 10 achievement points, is not fun.

1/10 1 point because there actually is a system atleast.

Sure, the numbers may seem big, but I apparently just got the 5000 kills achievement on Voss yesterday. The secret is not grinding but just playing the game, enjoying the different classes and their stories, romances, etc. Currently working on my 6th character to get through their class story, the kills just accumulate over time. You don't have to grind this with the same character, try them all and it happens almost by itself.

Reputation

Nothing is stopping you from hoarding the tokens, and use them once the cap is reset.

The cap is in place so that people do no burn through it and then complain there is nothing to do.

The game is very focused on altoholics, and the reputation is server-wide, so collecting enough tokens to reach cap is not unrealistic.

Achievements

I will not pretend to know every WoW achievement (I stopped with WotLK), however, browsing through list on WoWhead, lot of them look also very "grindy".

Again, no idea how WoW does it, but here, the achievements are, like reputation, server-wide, so many of the "grindy" achievements will progress without you noticing or even really trying while playing normally all your characters (again, the game has always encouraged to play all characters).

Many achievements here are also for exploration, crafting, decorating your house, etc, and those do not really feel "grindy".

Hi all, thanks for your answers and input. Since I don't know how you multi quote in this forum I'll just make a regular post.

Jaedelyia

I don't have enough experience to comment on that since I leveled solo. However I can in a lot of cases forgive slights in the leveling system since atleast for me 99% of the time played in a game is spent in endgame content.

Ryuku-sama

I don't know if I can agree with that without drawing comparisons. I tried a little of corruption spec and sure the healing isn't very intense but that doesn't mean that content that I have yet to do, nightmare modes etc, is not.

Jeweledleah

Obviously gear is a matter of taste but I think you'll be hard pressed saying there is great variety in the gear. I am not dissapointed in the limitation as I think it makes more sense, however I think it is incentive to find ways a player can stand out in other ways. As for the adaptive/custom armor being more flexible than transmog I think it's pretty much a negible difference.

I'd like to say that the pve are much more grindy, but let me rephrase that: There is an absence of meta achievements like the glory of the dungeon hero/raider. Those were really enjoyable, built in with pve encounters and offered fun rewards.

Sure reputation is legacy wide but why should that be a diminishing factor? I don't see the point in having a cap. By the start of this week reset, the second I was 55, I had amassed so many tokens from dailies I hit cap again the same day they reset.

Just play a ****ton.

Lord_of_Mu

Agreed, and I think it's a great, great change. But it doesn't explain why there's the need for a cap. What purpose does it serve?

Luinthoron

Yeah but I mean is that really what achievements are set out to be? An indicator of how many times you've leveled a character on a certain planet? What if you only play one character?

In my world achievements are supposed to be something that brings you out your way and doing something unusual or fun. I love the supergrinds. I truly do. But I don't like medium grinds being the common denominator for achievements.

Aries_cz

As above that is what happened to me.

Mentioned a lot of the points above. In particular what I miss are the "kill boss without activating this or that." or etc.

Hi all, thanks for your answers and input. Since I don't know how you multi quote in this forum I'll just make a regular post.

I think you have to hit quote on several posts and then copy/past it in. But most people tend to just quote and answer to one particular post instead of multiquoting, to avoid confusion.

Luinthoron

 

Yeah but I mean is that really what achievements are set out to be? An indicator of how many times you've leveled a character on a certain planet? What if you only play one character?

In my world achievements are supposed to be something that brings you out your way and doing something unusual or fun. I love the supergrinds. I truly do. But I don't like medium grinds being the common denominator for achievements.

If you play only one character, you will never get all achievements anyway, because every planet has "story progression" achievements. But, if you are willingly playing with only one character, you have to go that extra mile to get something. As I mentioned, this game's original design had a lot of focus on altoholics.

Personally, I think that playing with only one character is boring, and one should have at least two, just to see the game from Pub and Imp sides.

As do doing something unusual or fun, there is always datacron hunting, scanning for Shroud droids, digging, collecting special pets that require you to visit several different planets in short amount of time, etc.

Aries_cz

As above that is what happened to me.

 

Mentioned a lot of the points above. In particular what I miss are the "kill boss without activating this or that." or etc.

Boss mechanics in this game (especially on harder difficulties) usually mean you have to use all of them, or you wipe, there is no way around them, so "don't use this and that" would probably not work.

The real problem is simply how easy boss fight are in SM fp and even in HM. One can ignore most mechanics and still survive with how much HPS a heal can get off. In fact it's so easy than I learn more how to DPS in heal spec than to effectively heal infp with competent player.

I don't know if I can agree with that without drawing comparisons. I tried a little of corruption spec and sure the healing isn't very intense but that doesn't mean that content that I have yet to do, nightmare modes etc, is not.

That's another problem problem with Swtor, although this one is purely a matter of taste, I guess. Healer are pretty much expected to be healbots (and debuff cleaner bot), the old wow-fashioned way. (I'm caricaturing a bit here, but it's not that far from reality) I guess I can understand how some can find it pleasing but to me, especially when you are in small group or solo, I enjoy spending a bit more time doing damage.

Age of Conan actually managed to do it in a very interesting way. Smaller heals are HoT, and some of these are coupled with actual coupled with an attack skill, meaning that some of your attacks have the side bonus of triggering a heal over time. In between these HoT to apply, you should be DPSing, or managing group buff / debuff, other stuff (often also coupled with attacks). Of course, there's also some moment in the fight where they have to be more focused on heal, realing big nuke heal or applying temporary bubble on tanks and going full heal, but in general, over the whole fight, h healer healbotting without doing his fair share of dps is a BAD healer there. That bring quite a fresh approach and challenge on the table.

I wish Swtor had the same kind system, making the healers a bit more polyvalent and diverse/complex to play, but heh, because of "different taste for different people", I guess it wouldn't please everyone.

kinda replying to more than one person.

there are meta achievements. Datacron master is a meta achievement, consisting of smaller planetary achievements. newly introduced conquest titles are part of a Meta. there are Meta achievements tied to collections. there are faction Meta achievements (wanted dead or alive title for example) there is no challenges achievements... yet and yes, I think it could be nice, but then I agree that system could use improvement. (then again, some of those challenges in WoW that comprised hero Metas is wow always made me scratch my head :/)

we'll have to agree to disagree, becasue I found gear appearance customization in TOR vastly superior to WoW. just the existence of dye and color matching to chest alone makes a huge difference. the fact that my sage can look like a mandalorian in a heavy armor, while my mercenary can kill things whole running around in a gogo girl outfit and still be effective, alone makes it better to me. in WoW I'm tied to my armor type. so my shaman could never wear that pretty dress from Ahn'qiraj, let alone make it look green, for example, as I won't be allowed to transmog to it and I certainly cannot dye it. I've played games with gear customization that was vastly better than TOR and I occasionally daydream about dye system like the one GW2 has (seriously, my favorite dye system ever), but WoW is still one of the most, if not the most limited games on the market, when it comes to playing around with the look of your gear. and variety in appearance is not as drastic as you'd think.

on healing. I have played games where healing requires you to do damage, namely Neverwinter. it took me a bit of time to get used to and once I did, it wasn't so bad, but personally, I prefer the direct healing method of TOR. I really don't like to have to damage to heal ((and to be honest, I even dislike what little of that they added to WoW), I like what extra dps I do (and I do extra dps while healing) to be a little personal optional bonus rather than requirement. its not boring to me, in part becasue TOR's healing is partly based around actively replenishing your resources, so its fun for me, this balancing act between keeping people topped off, while keeping myself full on energy through active means rather than "not casting" (like I have to in WoW 90% of the time) when it comes to style of healing (via some dps, or through direct healing) I don't think its a matter of better in this case, as much its a matter of purely personal preference.

oh yeah, on reputation. if there wasn't a weekly limit, too many people would be done in first few days and then complain about having nothing to do. seeing as unlike WoW where you are limited by number of quests you can do in a day (there's only so many of them before you run out, and sure you can grind mobs for extra rp with occasional faction but there's still that matter of having to redo stuff on each alt), in TOR you are only limited by a number of alts that you have at appropriate level. which you could potentially have 22 of.

That's another problem problem with Swtor, although this one is purely a matter of taste, I guess. Healer are pretty much expected to be healbots (and debuff cleaner bot), the old wow-fashioned way. (I'm caricaturing a bit here, but it's not that far from reality) I guess I can understand how some can find it pleasing but to me, especially when you are in small group or solo, I enjoy spending a bit more time doing damage.

 

Age of Conan actually managed to do it in a very interesting way. Smaller heals are HoT, and some of these are coupled with actual coupled with an attack skill, meaning that some of your attacks have the side bonus of triggering a heal over time. In between these HoT to apply, you should be DPSing, or managing group buff / debuff, other stuff (often also coupled with attacks). Of course, there's also some moment in the fight where they have to be more focused on heal, realing big nuke heal or applying temporary bubble on tanks and going full heal, but in general, over the whole fight, h healer healbotting without doing his fair share of dps is a BAD healer there. That bring quite a fresh approach and challenge on the table.

 

I wish Swtor had the same kind system, making the healers a bit more polyvalent and diverse/complex to play, but heh, because of "different taste for different people", I guess it wouldn't please everyone.

Personally, I feel that if a fight is easy enough that a healer can off-dps, then that content is trivial. I remember when S&V first dropped, there were very few groups that downed it without healers doing damage as well, but that generally came at the expense of a possible wipe due to health pools not being topped up. For a healers ability to be tested, they SHOULD be basically a healbot. DPs don't typically have downtime, why should a healer?

One thing I loved was that crafting gave you better gear than most drops. Now a days, crafting is really more for companions unless I want to do an entire upgrade of my orange gear. Armor, mods and enhancements easily surpass the planetary commendations even buying them with warzone comms.

Before 2.0 dropped crafters could make the top tier gear. This led to people running around with the best gear in the game without ever setting foot in the most difficult content. Not a fan of that setup.

For a healers ability to be tested, they SHOULD be basically a healbot. DPs don't typically have downtime, why should a healer?

Because I think it's more challenging if the healer have to keep up the heals running all the time WHILE also dpsing. Just being a healbot is easier than managing both the heals (so they have no down time) AND cramming DPS and buff/debuff at the same time.

I'm not asking for a healer system where they can take a break from healing to focus only on DPS. I'm asking for a system where they HAVE to make both. Keeping the heals optimal and doing as much dps as they can without sacrificing heals. More depth and complexity. Which It's not really possible in Swtor or WoW. Of course they try to make a bit dps if they can, but that's super minimal.I don't consider healbotting as as fun & demanding, but heh, matter of taste I guess.

Because I think it's more challenging if the healer have to keep up the heals running all the time WHILE also dpsing. Just being a healbot is easier than managing both the heals (so they have no down time) AND cramming DPS and buff/debuff at the same time.

 

I'm not asking for a healer system where they can take a break from healing to focus only on DPS. I'm asking for a system where they HAVE to make both. Keeping the heals optimal and doing as much dps as they can without sacrificing heals. More depth and complexity. Which It's not really possible in Swtor or WoW. Of course they try to make a bit dps if they can, but that's super minimal.I don't consider healbotting as as fun & demanding, but heh, matter of taste I guess.

I would honestly say its a personal preference. I haven't found dpsing to heal to have any extra depth. in fact, I found it to have less depth since so much of your healing ends up being passive rather than specifically targeted. direct healing is all about triage. healing people through debuffs put on enemies etc seemed a lot more mindless to me. I also found it less fun. I was basically yet another dps, but an inferior one, who could occasionally throw heals around. it didn't feel focused. it didn't feel as fun. I got used to it, but it was one of the few instances where in MMO with trinity, I ended up eventually just going pure dps instead of healing like I usually do.

so yeah, I'm glad that TOR is one of the game where healing is 100% targeted. if I wanted to dps... I would dps. being forced to dps as a healing is annoying to me.

Hi,

 

I started playing this game roughly two weeks ago. And while the amount of hours I spent on it surely wouldn't count as casual, my experiences would've been the same if spread out over a longer timeframe.

One thing I have learned over time in the forum is that when someone decides to take their 15 minutes of fame on a gaming forum ----> check for congruent information as a credibility test.

Case in point here. You say you have played this game casually for a grand total of 2 weeks, yet your login ID is more then a year old (forum ID = 5068841). That is an immediate break in credibility IMO.

Besides, if you simply wanted to provide feedback to Bioware, there are plenty of ways to do it that do not rely on creating a provocative annotation of the game (after two weeks of casual play ).

I'm not saying your personal take and talking points about the game are not valid (to you). I am simply pointing out that you appear to present your viewpoint in a questionable context. Why exactly was it important for you to preface your critique thread on being a new player yet use an old account in the forum? That's puzzling to me. Personally, I think you have been around and playing a lot longer then 2 weeks.

That said.... different people want/get different things out of an MMO. Comparing one MMO to another is largely pointless. Play an MMO for what it offers, if what it offers pleases you. If not.. there is plenty of choice in the market and none of them require an "extensive feedback" thread in general forum discussion IMO.

One thing I have learned over time in the forum is that when someone decides to take their 15 minutes of fame on a gaming forum ----> check for congruent information as a credibility test.

 

Case in point here. You say you have played this game casually for a grand total of 2 weeks, yet your login ID is more then a year old (forum ID = 5068841). That is an immediate break in credibility IMO..

As an aside: the forum ID is not a sure way to discern when someone started playing. He could have registered the account some time ago but only recently did he actually download and begin playing the game.

On the other end, some folks have been playing since beta but registered a 2nd high-number forum ID because their original ID was banned on the forums after much trolling.

3 days to 55?

How