Hello there,

 

warning : incoming wall of text, TL;DR at the end.

 

I have been playing for a few weeks now. I completed the Inquisitor storyline, done a few planet storylines, the Ilum/malgus bit, started a sith warrior, and decided to buy the Knight of the Fallen Empire Discovery pack because I wanted to support the game and play more of it.

 

So I like the game. Mostly I like playing a Star Wars RPG that is reminiscent of Kotor. I enjoy greatly my space tomb raiding warlock power fantasy, and the Inquisitor storyline gave me a good chunk of that.

 

However, that is not to say there aren't things that rub me the wrong way, quite the contrary. And now that I am fully respectable paying premium customer I feel the imperious need to tell you all about it .

 

Now of course, all of this must be tempered by the fact that I actually haven't played all that much of the game. Lots of stuff I don't get and I don't know. But I feel it's still valid to make those point from the point of view of a newcomer.

 

I am sure most of what I am going to say has already been said, probably a long time ago too, maybe I am too late to the party, but it seems to me that there are still devs alive and kicking in this game, so : who knows, one more time, never enough feedback, nobody's going to talk for you, and maybe I'll get some advice.

 

Also, I suppose: SPOILERS AHEAD, though I have certainly played far less than most of you, one never knows.

 

The petty technical stuff :

French people are an annoyance, that's a well known fact. That's why I am playing a game in English on an azerty keyboard and I fully expect the game to acknowledge that fact by binding the key properly. Of course, it doesn’t. Even more annoying, I have to do the key rebinding on each new character because, well, there seems to be some import/exporting general keybind but I'll be damned if I know how to get it working.

 

Concerning one option on the map, that one little checkbox for the exploration mission, which is unchecked by default. Which is why I managed to miss out on all Korriban exploration missions, twice.

[And I was wondering what that cyclop was doing in that one tomb. Had I not realized my mistake three chapters later, he would have been starved of acolyte corpses forever.]

 

Textures : I know the game is a little old, that it's an mmo, and that it must run on a potato if possible … but that doesn't actually exclude the possibility of having higher resolution textures. In particular for the head gear (I love my Kallig mask, but god, the pixels … ) and for some companions. Like, say, the inquisitor's main one, the lovely Khem Val, which I know is supposed to be ugly, but I would love some high res ugliness instead of a pixelated one .

 

Speaking of Khem Val : Clipping. I know he is a hulking force-sensitive eating barbarian monstrosity, but it does pain me to see that lovely black vibrosword I gave him stuck in his back like that.

 

Dialogue wheel : to be developed in the rpg section.

Cartel Market : I gambled yesterday, bought a random dye pack, just to see how it worked. Well I don't know exactly that it worked, because I can't see those two dyes that supposedly came out of the box anywhere in my inventory, cargo hold, legacy storage. A ticket has been issued to support, but it is somewhat grating, because, you know : money .

Edit : Nevermind, I am just a noob. Shift + P it is.

 

Now onto more serious business :

I am in this mmorpg for the rpg part. At least for the time being. I can't for the life of me understand how the MMO part work yet, probably because I haven't actually finished all Story content, and I probably need a guild or some stuff like that.[ Oh goodness, socialization ...]

 

I have played some Bioware and Obsidian titles before, Neverwinter Nights 1 & part of the second , Kotor 1 & 2 , Dragon Age Origin, Mass Effect 1 to 3.

So I came in with a few expectations, some fond remembrances, probably blurred by nostalgia no doubt. But still I feel like the rpg components of swtor are weaker than in most previously cited title. I understand why that maybe, first the story line effort is spread between classes, planets, factions, flashpoints ( more on those later ) and second, there are old fashioned bog standard mmo bits that are clearly not blending well with the classical rpg elements .

 

But first lets fire some shot at one of the most irritable thing in this game and some others. That bloody dialogue wheel. It's horrendous. It needs to die in fiery pit of pain and torment. I hate it. I don't like playing guess work with my main method of decision making in my rpgs. Please give me an old-school block-of-text option. Thanks.

 

Now onto the main problem : story lines, be it class or planet or companions, suffer from a lack of impact/consequences. Of what I did and how I did it. And though I have yet to play those stories a second time , their linearity is flagrant despite some red or blue choices sprinkled on it. I don't mind the linearity so much, it is a clear and understandable results of the decision of splitting the story in so many way (which I would argue was not the best of choice, but that's another discussion I suppose). The lack of impact, the lack of acknowledgement, the lack of feeling of progression though … it is disappointing.

 

I have butchered my way through Correlia and ordered a genocide, and then … nothing. A few unconsequencial dialogue options and back to my ship. Even my little cult on Nar Shadda feel more like an accomplishment because of the three repeated holomail I get from them.

 

[Not to speak of the fact that I am supposedly the head of the Sphere of Ancient Knowledge of the Sith Empire and … well I am not sure it wasn't a prank on the part of the Dark Council. There isn't actually a Sphere of Ancient Knowledge. They just made it up for annoying schmuck like Thanaton, Zash, and well, me.]

 

Companions : Being able to affect the character of your companions, bending them one way or the other, helping them through their personal quest, managing their progression and gear are a pretty big part of what makes an rpg. Here it is also pretty superficial.

Quite literally as far as gear goes. And class progression and choice are non existent for them. If you give me an imperial droid I except to be able to put various murdering modules on it. If you give me two apprentices I expect to be able to decide of their teaching. Not just have skin options and one out of three choice of static class/skill combinations.

 

Dialogues/influences are limited to approves/disapproves and a linear progression through the chapters in rest zone no matter what from what I can tell. And only one real quest line out of 5 companions. Once again, that was pretty disappointing.

 

[Also, I really would have loved to put Zash into a Kath hound for Khem to butcher. Also disappointed that I didn't get to keep the rakata box as a force lightning training target to put on my ship. And I require an option to put a shock collar on Ashara. Good god she is annoying. I should have let that ghost killed her had I knew that I would not be able to torture her into a good little sith.]

 

There is also something to be said about what I would call the “classical mmo zone topography and npc repartitions problems”. The back and forth and travel time that it induces is annoying as hell. That and the lack of change on planets while their storyline progress.

 

Flashpoints & tying it together: I do not get why some flashpoint have story mode and other don't. Going through the False Emperor and reaching its conclusion was confusing, due to the fact that I was apparently supposed to do Correlia and a bunch of flashpoints beforehand.

 

[Oh look, it's the cool Darth Vader stand in from the cinematic. Oh look he is a traitor, has amassed an army of various aliens and sith minions, has The Foundry from the old games in its hand, an invisible fleet and now I have to kill him. Also the Children of the Emperor are dead (the Who ?). And the Dark Council has been decimated (I feel sooo included in what happen on this Council). ]

 

So doing something to clarify and tying together the various storylines would be nice. And I would like to be able to do all flashpoints on story mode. Because Group finder is, huh, not exactly great as far as experiencing a coherent story line goes. And I don't really enjoy being savagely murdered on Veteran. Side note : finding back the proper story introduction starting point of flashpoints is a pain.

 

About the flashpoints that you can do on story mode: I don't want to diss on healbot bro', he is a real pal, but you do know that I have 4 other companions on my ship doing jack all, while I am electrocuting imperial traitors, right ? I mean, they could lend a hand. That would be nice. Just saying. Having Khem and Xalek together would make for some great dialogue interaction, you know it.

 

Space mission : pretty neat as far as I am concerned, though the progression/difficulty curve is a bit all over the place. From: super easy to : pretty difficult to : you can't do this until you've grinded enough currency to buy proton torpedo to : you are probably going to need more than proton torpedo, go back to grinding.

Not the main meat of the game, but it is a fun side game. I am not sure I like gaining xp from it though. Not a fan of being ahead of the story level in general, even with the level scaling. I would rather gain piloting xp or something. The ship could also do with some more visual customization. And companions/character synergy?

 

[i mean, I do have a space pirate and three force users on board. That should count for something. No astromech though. Why the hell did they gave me a protocol droid instead of an astromech with this ship? As for Khem Val … I guess we can mount him on one wing and he’ll hit the passing spaceships with his sword.]

 

Stronghold : Well I am not sure what it is about. I'll probably play Ikea once I am done with the story lines I am sure. But with it being account wide, and having absolutely no tie in with the story line, it's far less sexy than, say, the fortress of NW2. I had a giant spider weaving clothes for me in the cave under that fortress, after sparing it during a quest. That was nice.

 

Don’t get the idea that I don’t like the game. I do. I had some great story moment, and I am hoping to have more. And despite my misgiving on the lowish resolution textures, the art direction is spot on. I am just a little disappointed rpg wise compared to previous comparable rpgs.

 

I have to go now. I am investigating crafting. Making Khem craft dyes and crystals amuses me to no end. I would just love to have some visual of it. But I am smelling a rat on the dyes accessible through it despite me being a fully-respectable-paying-premium-customer è_é . We shall see. Maybe for another wall of text, later.

 

And that's almost the end of the wall of mindless rambling.

 

Feels much better know.

 

This was just me venting . Congratulation if you actually read it . I suppose you can leave comment if you feel like it. Advice on how to best mix planet/class/flashpoint story lines together are most welcome.

 

------------------------------------------

TL;DR :

• keyboard detection not working properly

• account wide keybinding is unclear

• exploration mission checkbox need option to be checked on all characters

• need higher res textures on companions & headgear, at least

• get that sword out of Khem Val's back please

• cartel market seems unreliable needs to be clearer on where my items land

• dialogue wheel must die/need full text option

• class/planet/companion story lines feel unimpactful and linear so far

• companion customization is lacking

• standard mmo zone design is annoying and getting in the way

• flashpoints access and ties to other story lines are unclear and confusing

• would be nice to do story flashpoint with second companion

• space combat progression curve is a bit wonky

• ship could use some visual customization

• ship could use some synergy with character/companion

• stronghold seems superficial if it really has no tie in to story lines

Edited April 25, 2017 by Nablastar

Your dyes are in your item stash. Maybe someone will have a quick way of opening that? It's in the tab to the right of opening the item. If no one responds then I'll have a look once I'm in game. It is somewhere in the cm menu

Maybe someone will have a quick way of opening that?

 

Pack Explorer? If so, it's Shift-P or the right most drop down from the menu along the top.

 

I never bought a dye pack so that's a guess. Hope it's right.

 

edit: Appears so since it says "Item Stash" along the top of that panel when I try it.

Edited April 25, 2017 by dr_mike

Pack Explorer? If so, it's Shift-P or the right most drop down from the menu along the top.

 

I never bought a dye pack so that's a guess. Hope it's right.

 

edit: Appears so since it says "Item Stash" along the top of that panel when I try it.

 

Ah ! Here they are ! Thanks a lot to you both ! Crossing that one out of the list.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Nablastar

Saving keybinds - http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=843748

 

Haven't done that one either.

 

edit: ESC -> Preferences -> Keybinding Export/Import tab along the bottom all the way to the right

 

ship could use some visual customization

 

Staff said no previously due to the way they created them and they're not going back to fix it. Must requested after strongholds came out.

 

space combat progression curve is a bit wonky

 

http://swtor.gamepedia.com/Space_combat

 

http://dulfy.net/2011/12/28/space-missions-guide/

 

Both guides are a bit outdated but should be helpful. May want to bookmark Dulfy as she has an ear to both sides, player and staff.

 

stronghold seems superficial if it really has no tie in to story lines

 

It's player housing. Never really seen any mmo where it related to story lines. At least you can set up a room with everything you need to interact with like banks, the GTN, etc.

 

I'm going home.

Edited April 25, 2017 by dr_mike

NB the keybinding and UI saves can be ported between computers as well, as long as you can find where SWTOR has saved them. That should all be in the link Dr_Mike linked.

 

NB2 the UI and elements like tab targeting behaviour can all be customised - a lot. New players often miss this, and find the targeting frustrating until they tweak it to suit themselves.

Thank you all for the advices. Much appreciated.

 

I forgot to add one thing on the "Petty technical stuff" list :

The game doesn't actually start up properly if I don't ctrl+alt+supr>task manager out of it, then back in. If I don't do that it's black screen and loading cursor 'til kingdom come.

Edited April 26, 2017 by Nablastar

Even more annoying, I have to do the key rebinding on each new character because, well, there seems to be some import/exporting general keybind but I'll be damned if I know how to get it working.

 

When you open settings there's import/export tab at the bottom.

When you have good keybinding setup you can go to that tab and save it:

There should be text box in lower left corner where you can type a name for your keybinding settings. After you have typed the name for it click the icon next to box to save it. Name of those settings should pop up in list on left side of the screen.

 

Loading keybinding settings:

When on new character go to settings and open keybindings import/export tab, select setting you want and then click Apply in lower right corner. You're done.

 

When BW updates the game if they add something they most likely will use some of the keybindings you're already using. This will cause tutorials and other windows popping up during combat. This has nothing to do with your settings and you've not done anything wrong.

Even though there were many complaints in the original post, it was well-written and entertaining. I enjoyed reading it.

Play all the way through the Ilum storyline including The Battle of Ilum and the False Emperor flashpoint will make perfect sense.

Thank you all for the advices. Much appreciated.

 

I forgot to add one thing on the "Petty technical stuff" list :

The game doesn't actually start up properly if I don't ctrl+alt+supr>task manager out of it, then back in. If I don't do that it's black screen and loading cursor 'til kingdom come.

 

I'm going to take a guess that you have a laptop with an Intel CPU and dedicated nVidia graphics. If you don't you can disregard the rest of what I say.

 

I had that problem after one of the big Windows 10 updates but can't remember which. Windows was installing an out of date driver for the Intel graphics. I had to uninstall the Windows supplied driver and get the one I downloaded from Intel installed before the default got reinstalled.

snip.

Thanks

 

Even though there were many complaints in the original post, it was well-written and entertaining. I enjoyed reading it.

*blush*

 

Play all the way through the Ilum storyline including The Battle of Ilum and the False Emperor flashpoint will make perfect sense.

I did ... and it didn't. The only thing that made sense after that was the presence of Kaleesh on Malgus' side. No idea what the Trandoshan , Mandalorian , that one hacker and his buddies or HK-47 were doing here. No idea what the Ascendancy was, no idea how Malgus got his hands on the Foundry. And at the conclusion of it : no idea when and how the Dark Council got decimated and the Emperor thingy got killed and what it was.

 

From what I have gathered, those are explained in other flashpoints, most of them not having story mode.

 

I'm going to take a guess that you have a laptop with an Intel CPU and dedicated nVidia graphics. If you don't you can disregard the rest of what I say.

You are spot on, I will look into it, thanks.

Edited April 27, 2017 by Nablastar

...

• get that sword out of Khem Val's back please

...

 

 

 

Just finished the Sith Warrior story line, and started an Imperial Agent.

 

- Vette is insufferable, and from what I have read, it's not possible to "turn" her in any way, which is grating.

- Despite having removed her collar ( was getting tired of having the same conversation over again ), the collar still appear on her model afterward.

- Jaesa model disappears during some conversations, the only sign of her presence : her floating lightsaber.

- There's also a weird outfit difference during the first few cutscene after you recruit her ( jedi gear during cutscene, sith one in game ), and also between her standard sith outfit ingame and during conversation after that.

- On Hoth, there was some very weird colouring issue with my headgear during conversation, it was like it was purple-ish.

 

 

- I had noticed the same thing during the Inquisitor storyline, but it is also true for the Sith Warrior. The little tid bit of text during loading time when you login , that sum up what you did and what you are suppose to do next systematically indicate Alderaan as the first destination after Nar Shaddaa. When it's obviously Tatooine that is next leveling wise. And there it continues to display text like you were on Alderaan..

- Despite a not very original/cool looking design like, say, Malgus, Marr or even Baras, I really like Darth Vowrawn's character. He needs a cooler outfit.

- Thank god for the outfit designer because the pummeler gear looks absolutely ridiculous. I mean, cape and robes for a sith warrior, seriously ?

- I started a female chiss bodytype 1 agent ( I am original like that ) , and my rifle is floating above my back, sticking out like a sore thumb during cutscene. I am going to roll other character with different bodytype to see if that's the cause of the problem, but really ... that shouldn't even be there. Also : she has a ghost blaster pistol that appears in cutscene and not in game <.<

Just finished the Sith Warrior story line, and started an Imperial Agent.

Agent is my favorite (although I like the Sith Warrior, too).

 

- Vette is insufferable, and from what I have read, it's not possible to "turn" her in any way, which is grating.

Agree!

 

 

 

- I should have had the option to butcher Quinn. Or put a shock collar on him and give the control to Pierce. It's just absolutely ridiculous that everything goes back to normal after he just straight up back-stabs us .

 

 

i wish they would hire the OP lol

- I should have had the option to butcher Quinn. Or put a shock collar on him and give the control to Pierce. It's just absolutely ridiculous that everything goes back to normal after he just straight up back-stabs us .

 

 

In beta players had the ability to "dismiss"/kill companions. The problem was that if you did that then you lost that companion (and it benefits: crew skills) forever. And even though players were warned with "are you sure?" requests they still complained when they realized the consequences. As a result, the ability to remove companions was eliminated. Believe me there have been several companions I did not want on my ship, but they are forced on us - see BH Skadge.

 

That said, with the newest story line: Knights of the Fallen Empire, and Knights of the Eternal Throne, because they have added far more companions than one could ever need for crew skills, they have created scenarios where certain companions can be killed off or simply not accepted...but not ALL of them; some are still an integral part of the story and are therefore "immortal"

 

 

As to "consequences of your actions" overall, that is VERY hard to accomplish in an MMO. The world has to exist so that anyone and everyone gets the same overall experience, so there will never be grand consequences (i.e. you genocide Corellia and that population is gone forever) Nuance in consequence is possible though and there are a lot nuanced consequences.

 

Just one example:

 

 

 

No nuanced consequence has a major impact on the story arc/plot points, but it does allow for re-playable variations.