Played an SI up through BT and reached lvl 16.

 

I completed the exploratory missions and only used boosts provided and did not purchase any legacy perks.

 

Initially with BT I was concerned about the paltry amount of abilities, but having Heroic Moment at 11 (with all abilities available) helped to make short work of the bonus boss. The others posed no difficulty. I had anticipated possibly needing medpacs or grenades and was prepared for a solo wipe as I decided to venture in without any of either.

 

The additions to the FP cinematics were a nice, unexpected surprise.

Well, seeing as how PTS ended yesterday, it looks we're either not going to get a response to our concerns with the cosmetics and stats of the leveling gear. This is both disappointing and frustrating. I mean could we have not gotten some form of communication on this front?

Well, seeing as how PTS ended yesterday, it looks we're either not going to get a response to our concerns with the cosmetics and stats of the leveling gear. This is both disappointing and frustrating. I mean could we have not gotten some form of communication on this front?

 

They haven't really responded to anything. I wouldn't take it personally.

 

All you can do as a subscriber is leave your feedback, reasoned and in a polite way.

Over the last decade--no matter who is leading the team--responses have always been consistently intermittent. Yet, remember that we can't hold Jackie or Musco responsible because they're not Developers. Perhaps if customer interaction was part of the job description of the Devs we'd be able to learn a lot more and have more meaningful feedback.

 

Note how Jackie has written a few times that she'll "take this back to the team." The Developers have internet access at their workstations, right? (We know they do since everyone is still working from home.) Can't they log in once a day and look over threads that touch upon their area(s) of responsibility and post a reply? Even an initial one such as--"We're considering/weighing/looking into this" would tell us we're just not expressing ourselves into the digital void.

Sorry not sorry, but whats the point on creating feedback threads if the Dev doesn’t response/address/acknowledge etc etc those feedback?

 

Even the other main game I play, which release 3 consecutively bad DLC (hint: one of them is the worst-rated DLC on steam), still response to their player feedback and thankfully brings the game to a respectable degree right now.

 

On a side note, on my discord someone jokingly said “Bioware might as well decided to bring this game to mobile” and some of us feels like thats something they would do lol.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Zechalakazam
Forgot to add some sentences coz im on phone

Combat Sentinel Evaluation:

 

So, on the December PTS, leveling of the Sentinel is much improved. It feels more like live.

 

In the previous build it felt slow and ponderous and there was a lot of waiting around for abilities to come off cooldown.

 

In the new build, there are more abilities available and include what I consider core abilities of the Combat Sentinel class (Strike, Slash, Force Leap, Force Sweep, Zealous Strike, and Blade Barrage). The combat flow with these abilities available is much smoother and has the flashy feel of the class back. It has its crowd control ability back so keeping enemies off the companion should be easier (I've only gotten halfway through Tython so far so I don't have T7 yet) but we will see how that goes later.

 

All in all a vast improvement over the previous PTS. Thanks for listening to the feedback from experienced Sentinel players and adjusting the class accordingly.

Edited December 10, 2021 by DWho

So far my Opinion of the Commando.

 

Level from 1-15. Only have 4 abilities hammer shot, explosive round, charged bolts, and I finally got High Impact bolt at 15. The leveling seem very slow so far, I have no abilities for the gunnery spec yet other then high impact bolt. Grav Round needs to come earlier then level 23. I'll will keep updating this post as I get higher levels.

 

Edit: The XP rate feels the same, but the amount of time needed to kill due to the fact of so few abilities is what is making it feel extremely slow.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Toraak

The rate of leveling seems about normal to me. What is slow is acquisition of abilities. The constant positive feedback loop getting new abilities died.

So far I have levelled my sin to level 10 on the PTS using no legacy perks or boosts in order to get the feeling they are going for for fresh players. So far I like the flow of rewards and XP, I have not encountered a piece of armour yet that is above my current level (as was pointed out during previous PTS cycles). However, I do feel that the rate of gaining abilities could be a little bit faster than it currently is, not much however since I think it sits in a rather good position through levels 1-10. I do believe that the PVE world content should provide some sort of difficulty for the player to keep them engaged so rewarding too many abilities at one time might break the balance even more, however rewarding too few makes the rotation repetitive and boring fairly quickly. I'm interested to see how the rest of the levelling experience has been impacted with the changes presented in this expansion.

The rate of leveling seems about normal to me. What is slow is acquisition of abilities. The constant positive feedback loop getting new abilities died.

 

I think the rate-gain ability now is on par with ESO, in that you don't get an ability in ESO every time you level but as you accrue points to assign to skills to either improve or unlock sub-abilities, and there's this wide buffet of places to assign those points. PTS rate of ability acquisition is definitely far slower than EQ2, where you get a new ability handed to you practically every level.

 

The difference is, unlike SWTOR which just lobs more abilities onto the pile and only occasionally does a wholesale replacement of one ability with a more powerful ability, both ESO and EQ2 have upgrade paths per ability, either through skill attenuation like ESO, or by arithmetic upgrade of the same ability, as in EQ2.

 

So what I realized is that SWTOR has now a longer delay, but with no attenuation or upgrade of existing abilities, and other games have gotten me habituated to fiddling with abilities between new acquisitions, and in SWTOR there's nothing like that, making the wait to get the next bag of goodies of abilities seem longer.

 

I don't know what the answer is for that, other than getting players habituated to the delay.

Edited December 10, 2021 by xordevoreaux

So, on the December PTS, leveling of the Sentinel is much improved. It feels more like live.

 

In the previous build it felt slow and ponderous and there was a lot of waiting around for abilities to come off cooldown.

 

In the new build, there are more abilities available and include what I consider core abilities of the Combat Sentinel class (Strike, Slash, Force Leap, Force Sweep, Zealous Strike, and Blade Barrage). The combat flow with these abilities available is much smoother and has the flashy feel of the class back. It has its crowd control ability back so keeping enemies off the companion should be easier (I've only gotten halfway through Tython so far so I don't have T7 yet) but we will see how that goes later.

 

All in all a vast improvement over the previous PTS. Thanks for listening to the feedback from experienced Sentinel players and adjusting the class accordingly.

 

Alright, finished off Tython and leveling feels a lot like it does on live. It is definitely slower but not onerously so. This time I left Tython at level 14 after doing all the missions on the planet (on live that is more like 17-20 depending on if you use xp boosts or not).

 

Force Sweep provided a much needed CC ability earlier for the Combat Sentinel making it possible to control the battlefield somewhat and reducing the need to run down opponents attacking the companion mitigating some of the loss of mobility. Another good update to what was on the previous PTS.

 

Just a couple of potential areas for improvement, none of which seriously affect game play. The Tython Battler Offhand Blade looks like a lightsaber in the inventory icon but actually looks like the sith warblade (from Koriban) including the red glow. I'm not sure if that is the intended appearance of the item or just a fill in model. Changing the glow to blue or green would seem more in "character" on Tython. Also, there are two sets of gear with the same name but different item levels (18 and 30 Tython Battler) that look exactly the same. On live there also were two but they colored differently and had slightly different names (Mk1 and MK2 if I recall). Making the second set a recolor of the first would add some variety to appearances on Tython. Again, nothing major, just a couple of potentials for simple updates.

 

Edit: Not sure if anything was done with Conquest, but I got to 100K in about half as much time as the previous PTS build. Hit is by the beginning of Coruscant instead of the beginning of Taris

Edited December 9, 2021 by DWho

I leveled my Slinger to lvl 9 so far on the PTS. The one change I think would be super helpful is a heads up when new abilities are automatically added to my character. I went to the trainer at level 3 and it said new abilities available at level 4. So, I went back at level 4. This time it said new abilities available at level 5!! No new abilities at level 4. So, I did it again, went back a level 5 and ... now new abilities would be available at level 6 .

 

This led me to start reviewing my character's abilities list, which showed that I did have new ones. They weren't showing up on my casting bar, I had to manually add them. I checked again at levels 7, 8 and 9 to verify that this is what was happening.

 

Being a seasoned player and having already leveled 4 other Smugglers on live, I knew to start digging for where my abilities were. I can't imagine what actual new players will experience if they have no idea they're getting new abilities added. Not having to travel to a trainer is great, but something needs to replace it that better enables players to (1) know about the new ability, (2) learn what the new ability is and how it works, and (3) decide where to add the ability on their casting bar.

So I made a Shadow with the Jedi Knight story and it all worked pretty smoothly. My only real issue was that the lack of new abilities while on Tython kind of made it a slog, ten levels with 3 abilities. It didn't make the content difficult or anything like that just felt longer than it probably was. I'll continue tomorrow and see how the Coruscant experience feels. Edited December 10, 2021 by Shadezilla

Could use work:

 

Ability gain rate. In theory, with 80 levels and 20+ abilities that's an average ability gain of about 1 ability per 4 levels, or perhaps for some classes closer to one per 3 levels. This is front loaded a bit toward lower levels, but not as effectively as it should be. What I mean, is that the way the frontloading is done, it's not doing a great job of serving the functions you'd list as a game designer to answer the question of why abilities should be frontloaded in the leveling process. Things like: feel like you're "winning" frequently in the first hour of play, learn how the ability system works, learn energy management, learn DCDs, etc.

 

Crafting is pretty bloody useless, good gear, but doesn't remotely keep up with current character leveling rate. Historically the blue crafted gear has been excellent in terms of gear quality as far as gear that can be equipped at a given level. Better than the stuff available from vendors. However, for a new player, or a new legacy on a different server, or really any case where you don't already have an army of alts with maxed out crafting and a backlog of obsolete materials, crafted gear is pretty useless because you'll reach the level cap by the time you can craft say around level 30 gear. Basically crafting has cosmetics from some but not all crafting skills, some consumables, and augments from what will be 3 expacs ago when 7.0. The crafting level of grind hasn't meaningfully changed since 1.0, but the level of leveling grind has radically decreased. The mismatch leads to a situation where crafting could be great in that it has excellent products, but the products are gated behind a leveling process that's so out of whack with character leveling that crafting might as well not exist for a new player. Which is kinda sad. Also likely to lead a new player to conclude that crafting in SWTOR just generally sucks, which it sort of does, but it sucks disproportionately more for a new player than for an established army of alts. Why include this in leveling feedback? Because for a new player exploring what you can do in the game is an integral part of the leveling experience, and right now the crafting portion of that experience is not a good one because the progress scaling is so badly out of touch with how leveling progress is scaled.

will all locations continue to have base class trainers that were designed for the original class stories? If so, please add other trainers for all other "combat styles". If not then please remove all these trainers and just rename or replace those existing trainers with something generic like "Class Trainer" that does all regardless of combat style?

Carnage Marauder Evaluation:

 

Took the time to level a Carnage Marauder from 1-10. It plays pretty much like the Combat Sentinel on the Pub side with slightly different abilities. Like the Combat Sentinel, combat flow is much improved with the change in the granting of abilities. You don't end up spamming the primary attack (Assault) constantly waiting for another ability to come off cooldown. The crowd control ability (Smash) helps to keep control of the battle and I expect it will have a similar effect it had on the Sentinel, allowing the Marauder to keep the attacks off the companion. At level 10 you have the core abilities of the Marauder (Assault, Vicious Slash, Force Charge, Smash, Battering Assault, Force Scream, and Ravage).

 

Much improved over the previous PTS version which like the Sentinel was slow and ponderous and lacked any "flash". A couple of minor comments. The first mission is to get your Sith Warblade and bloody it in the tomb, but you don't get a Sith Warblade, you get a normal practice saber. Also, like the sentinel, the Korriban Battler Offhand Blade appears in the inventory as a lightsaber but has the Sith Warblade appearance.

 

Again, thanks for listening to the feedback and restoring the Marauder to something similar to what is on Live.

Edited December 10, 2021 by DWho

So I stared an imperial agent as a powertech and am currently done hutta taking the shuttle for the fleet and here is where I stand:

-I'm already level 11 with killing a couple extra enemies but not really trying to level up.

-I have 4,700 credits

-The way abilities are auto "given" are kind of weird. On the one hand it's convenient but on the other hand I have NO idea how abilities are granted, what level you get them at, and it's easy to not even really know what's going on and to not realize I gained a bunch of passive abilities (also, why do I have a passive to buff scorch damage when I don't even have the ability?)

-Some of the tutorials are good and I thought they would be very helpful for new players... a lot of them are not. Why the heck am I learning about having a ship, KOFE/KOET, etc... there are so many things that are thrown at the player way too early or in the wrong situation (tutorial wise). Also, there are obviously tutorial screens that no longer make sense.... more on tutorials later.

-I feel like one of the major issues is just getting random new abilities and everything feels the same on the starter planet. All the abilities I got are just random buttons to click, take your pick. It really doesn't help me understand my abilities and I'm not motivated to try and figure out the specifics of each one. In general, I think this has always been a flaw of the game, how players are shown the value of different abilities (or should I say, not shown)

-Too many of the fights are way too easy, even the final "boss" before leaving the planet was pointlessly easy thanks to having a companion healing me. I probably could have gone afk and won. That was probably the hardest encounter on the entire planet.

-I like the fact that I got 5 attacks fairly early on and was able to use all of them for a decent amount of time before leaving the planet. This was nice, especially not getting more random ones to thrown on the pile right away.

 

Some major issues I think would improve the experience:

-Have more stuff "forced" upon the player. That bouncing tutorial available button is easy to ignore. Have a window come up at certain parts in the game with a tutorial/alert so the player knows they're supposed to learn something now. Maybe you could make them immune to damage when it comes up or script it to only come up in safe areas (I'd hate to die because I stopped to read something and enemies aggro on me).

-Make a bigger deal about mounts when players can learn to use a mount!!!! Just going to a trainer and seeing the ability to learn doesn't really do enough imo.

-I have no sense of the importance of levelling or Gear, I just walk around and things die and I don't.

-If I wasn't an experienced player, who knows how long it would have taken me to figure out I had other abilities like quick travel, revive a companion, etc, available to me. The combat style screen seems kind of like "oh I guess I can ignore it" when you start... there isn't much there and everything in the ability tree is dark.

-Waypoints. This is just a general comment from having played all the class stories, not PTS specifically, but it'd be really nice if someone would go in and check/fix all the waypoints in the game as some of them don't point you the right way or are confusing to figure out how to get to. I didn't have any issues on the starter planet but hard to say if a new player would feel the same.

 

So, I can say that it felt okay and I can't say at this point I feel like you've made a good system. It's okay, slightly better than before, but we weren't starting with an amazing system imo.

 

Now about those tutorials!

-Tutorial cards do need some updates, some aren't really the best advice (why not tell people about tab target when you say you can click on an enemy), and many are given at points where it makes no sense to learn that about the game.

-As mentioned before, they should be more "pop up in your face" at relevant times.

-When learning new skills, etc, it should pop up with something to tell you more about each thing you just learned and why that's important. Animations to go along with it would be super cool

-There should be a better walk through of the UI and updated with the new stuff.

-Better examples on how to navigate your quests and how to figure out where you're going next. Idk if people actually find that part hard, but the instructions provided are pretty minimal.

-When going to the fleet for the first time, there should be an option to get at tour or a better tutorial on all the things fleet is good for and why it's your hub.

 

About the levelling

-Levelling up doesn't feel like much to celebrate. I have no idea what I'm getting for levelling up so it's just "okay I know levelling up is good because that's how games work." Why did I get a bunch of abilities but that isn't listed anywhere... why have the skill tree but not show me what things I'm going to get at each level? What am I working towards, what are my milestones, what's important?

-I'd enjoy seeing some things linked to getting off the starter planet, so kind of like level sync, doesn't matter what level you get off the planet at you're going to unlock certain things by getting off the planet and other things you can't get (by over levelling) until you leave the planet. Show all those things to the player in a tutorial style format.

Got my warrior assassin to lvl 14 and finished all of Korriban.

 

Lets talk gear. Are you finished? It doesn't feel like you are finished. On live I would have received the 6 piece Apprentice Pummeler's MK-1 (rank 18) and the 7 piece Apprentice Pummeler's MK-2 (rank 30). Both with distinct looks. On the PTS I received just the chest and belt (rank 18) of a new Korriban set that is just a re-use of the Requisitioned Pummeler skin, not even a recolor. Then the rank 30 gear looks identical and only has chest, belt and gloves. Where are the pants, boots, bracers and helmets for these sets? Is it intentional that we get half of the armor rewards? If so why? And why dump unique skins for reused skins? If it was just to keep the name more generic, why not just change the name?

 

I mentioned in the bug forum that characters can no longer be moved around in the item preview screen making examining details of gear much harder. Intended or bug?

 

Combat was much better than the earlier PTS. The Vemrin fight wasn't hard, but it was slow and boring. I tried the heroics pre-Vette and melted due to lack of armor. Post-Vette they were easy peasy.

 

After 100%ing Korriban with liberal killing of mobs, I was only at 60k conquest. I'm sure it will be better with the stronghold bonus, but it feels excessively slow. Is the removal of heroic mission goals for this week only or a permanent nerf to solo conquest?

 

I'm getting used to a lot of the interface changes, but I still think the old rounded corners and fuzzier lines looked much nicer. The new "crisp" boxes just look harsh to me. The granting of new skills is odd. I went several levels without a speeder because I didn't realize that skill was on the trainer instead of auto-granted. I had to rummage to find my recall. A new player wouldn't know to look for it.

* Broken UI (the inventory is very reluctant to close when I press Esc)

This is still the case.

I leveled a Jedi Knight-Shadow to level 13 now (still on Tython), here are some of my impressions:

I started with 3 abilities visibly slotted on my bar - though the shadow actually has a fourth (force breach is also granted at level 1) which wasn't on the bar.

So I am pretty sure new players will think they have to work with these 3 abilities until they hit level 7- and that gets old really fast.

At least for me the shadow is stealthy and fast- on low level it felt more like the opposite: I was running towards enemies painfully slowly and in plain sight... not very shadowy

 

Another thing I don't really like is the auto-granting of abilities- they just poof appear on your bar- could be quite confusing for new players I imagine...

and if you do the auto-grant, then please do it for ALL abilities/passives because when I reached level 10 some new abilities popped up on my bar BUT I had to visit a trainer to get the speeder piloting I ... is that a bug or a feature?

so overall I would prefer the old system where you only get new abilities at the trainer...

 

A thing I noticed- since I took a different CS than my origin would suggest (at least I think it has something to do with that) I couldn't preview abilities to come (for the shadow) on the jedi knight trainer but on the consular trainer...

 

lastly, it looked like my shadow was an infiltration shadow though I never actively picked that discipline. Again a confusing thing (not only for new players...)

And another thing concerning disciplines: if I read that ability tree correctly instead of level 10 on live, the first discipline specific ability will be granted at level 23?! way too late if true

Ignore Edited December 11, 2021 by Jedi_riches

Guardian Evaluation:

 

The Guardian from level 1-10 plays similarly to that on live. It is an improvement over the last iteration of the PTS in that you now have enough abilities available that you don't have to spam Strike and Slash over and over again for 8-10 levels. Force Sweep has been added back to give it an AOE/CC ability at a lower level (lvl 4) allowing it to be more in control of combat and keep enemies off the companion.

 

Both Jedi Knight classes seem to be in a pretty good place as far as low level advancement is concerned.

My comments are regarding Sorcerer here (of course this also applies to Sage).

 

Starting in the mid-teens, I'm really keenly feeling the loss of Chain Lightning. It becomes such an integral part of your dps rotation when you get it on live and has been forever. My fights are taking much longer at lvl 20 than they do on live, painfully so, and I know I am some levels away from relief.

 

Thus far, I haven't experienced that drag on other classes, but of course I haven't levelled them all on PTR, but this issue is really notable. I think something has to change there. If I knew nothing about Sorc before and played this, it'd be easy to assume that Sorc was terrible and give up on it early. The other classes so far have fared much better in this levelling phase.

So get out, do the early cut scenes on Korriban, get and kill the Korslugs, make it to level 2. Go down talk to the trainer, no skills Available. Okay no worries, I know you screwed up... I mean messed with... the skills progression we'll see how it goes.

 

So it takes to what... level 5 or so to get the next skill... and then the next skill is level 7... why bother with all those intermediary levels when there nothing being gained or lost. It just seems to be progression for the sake of numbers, with zero character growth. If you're characters aren't going to get stronger at a level, why bother with them.

 

So I figured I'd go and check out the combat proficiency. First... really level 23 to get to a level proficiency. First who decided on the random number of 23. Really... something that momentous in a characters leveling process you'd think you'd put it on a 5 number... like of I don't know 20. 23 just seems like you rolled two dice, and came up with a random number. If you're going to pick a random number I'd suggest "16". That way it matches when you leave Drommund Kaas/Coruscant.

 

Secondly why so late in a career? If already skills are coming few and far between, with two to three levels between skills, why wait so long before making your characters feel like your characters are actually strong. Again why not have it take effect at the end of Drommund Kaas/Coruscant just as you're about to enter into the galaxy at large. By 23, by your progression, I'm off Taris/Balmorra and almost (but not quite) done with Nar Shaddaa,

 

I mean I get it, with all the exp drops and stuff that progression isn't actually real, but really, why wait until well after the capital planets, and in the middle of some other weird planet, to suddenly be "specialized".

 

Also I don't know what happened to my legacy, probably a PTS thing. But I feel really weak without my legacy bumps, which is I suppose how it should be, but as a new player, with zero experience, and skills coming so wide and far between levels, it seems like I'm being made artificially weak. I'm not and I'm surviving just fine, but it seems... off.. the whole early game leveling just seems designed to punish instead of make us feel heroic.

 

Edit: Who thought it was a good idea to even keep the trainers in the game for maybe 5 skills? It's confusing and not needed. So all my class skills come automatically, but at a handful of levels I have to go to a trainer to get things like speeder pilot, without any notification that I need to do so. So you make class skills automatic, and many of the general skills automatic, but not all of them. Just take the trainers out, and make all skills automatic, and at each level have a pop-up on screen (after combat is concluded) that just says "congratulations on level xx. Your new skills are: xx. Next level: xx.

 

Edit 2: Okay so I'm off Korriban. Hit level 13. All I can say was painful in ways I'd never imagine a game leveling could be. 13 levels later, and I have exactly 4 combat skills more then I started with. It's like playing an X-box or Playstation game on PC. No skill choices, and just literally spam the same 3 skills practically over and over and over until the mobs are dead... rinse... repeat.

 

There's no engagement. I never felt scared, or challenged, even with the serious lack of damage mitigation skills on the sorcerer by 13. It was just.. tedious... to spam the same skills... hell one of the skills you get at like 10 is Electrocute. Sure it's useful... but it doesn't exactly fit into an attack chain. So it's either spam Force Storm with the occasional Overload if it gets in too close... or just spam Force Lightning and Shock... and in the middle Lighting Strike.

 

So I decided to check the trainer, the only thing the trainer is still good for, to see when the next attack powers will show up. Level 23. I get a heal at 15, that's it, and my movement break at 19. It takes until 23 to get more then a handful of attack skills.

 

That really means for two to three planets I'll be playing the X-box version of SWTOR, just spamming the same skills for 23 levels straight. Why? It's slow and clunky and boring and tedious with zero indication that I'm actually improving at all. Hell there are entire levels where you skills don't even bother improving. After 15, you don't get anything... no skill improves... no skills... nothing... until 19 when you get Break Free... then nothing at all again until level 23.

 

When you finally get your next attack skill... oh yeah and get to pick your combat proficiency too.

 

So as far as I can tell, at 23 you actually get to begin to play a PC MMO and not a X-box game.

 

Creating new characters and leveling up alts used to be one of my favorite past times. Now it's going to be so tedious I have no intention of ever wanting to ever again.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Lady_Myajha

As Imperial...Commando..doing BH storyline.

 

Did the Hutta heroics once, unable to do them again. More than likely because Commando is a Republic class.

 

 

 

Also, cannot choose title of Bounty Hunter. I am only a commando. If I do the BH storyline, am I going to get the BH titles?

 

**Now at level 23. A whole bunch of new abilities pop up on my bar, with no warning. Or reason. Should be a notification to goto a trainer to learn them. Gives a meaning to the trainer NPC's.

Edited December 12, 2021 by Taurax