SW: The Old Republic Part 3

[Guest Slinky]

On the other hand I quite enjoyed the SW VA, it had the right amount of arrogance to it.

 

Yeah, I like SW's VO too, but not that much the things he says.. "I'd be proud to help", "I will happily face this danger"

[Humanoid]

Is there actually a way to properly preview voices other than the word or two they utter when you select the class/gender combination? Creating all 16 combos (necessarily involving deleting some of them to free up character slots) is tedious - especially if one's silly enough like me to spend way too long customising appearance then deciding to change because of the voice.

 

Thus far:

Female Smuggler - like the voice ....shame about the class not being fun

Female Jedi Knight - didn't work for me

Male Sith Warrior - most recent attempt, but about 5 levels in, starting to grate.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Humanoid

[Malcador]

Youtube works. Best voice in my opinion was the female IA's.

[Hurlshort]

Republican Trooper Male is pretty good, definitely nothing grating about his voice.

[Hurlshort]

Sprint being available for all levels and being able to match my chestpiece colors has made this a different game for me. My low level alts look great and move fast.

 

I think I'm going to stick with a bounty hunter for awhile, I love the gameplay.

[Humanoid]

I tried the Bounty Hunter too - had more fun with it than the smuggler in terms of combat mechanics, but it's not really doing anything for me plotwise. I mean the plot drivers are:

1) Participate in some sort of Wild Hunt for fame and glory; and 2) revenge for a guy you met 5 minutes ago.

 

 

Between this and the Sith Warrior that I tried immediately before, I also feel like there's less decision space for me personally when resolving quests - it's fairly frequently either chaotic stupid or obedient patsy. I suppose the cartoon villainy is the fault of the setting more than the game specifically, but yeah, I think I'll lean towards the Republic instead for better roleplaying freedom.

 

---

 

And now for the rant which I've delayed a bit prior until I got a taste of how it applies to the different classes. In the end it made no difference however, it's the same one if I had stuck with just the one class.

 

In the end, I think what will be the killer for me are the UI limitations. Sure, it's unfair to compare seven years worth of user-driven interface ingenuity in WoW (at one point, infamously, going to the extent of being able to draw 3D objects directly onto the gameworld). But the closedness of the design in terms of allowing any experimentation user-side at all is potentially a terminal issue for any MMO. Bioware has been able to get aware by making their single-player games progressively less and less customisable over the past decade, but extending such a policy to SWTOR is a case of self-inflicted foot-severing.

 

Further, I think it's also a case of a disparity between the design of character abilities and the backing of the interface required to effectively use them. My UI for WoW circa 2005 was roughly about as functional as TOR's today. Critically, however, TOR's combat complexity aspires to be about the same as WoW's circa 2012. A sensible goal, to be sure, but the player flat out doesn't have the tools to use the abilities effectively.

 

To wit: In 2005, a typical class would use two, maybe three abilities total over the course of a standard battle. In 2012, it's more like 5-6 in constant use, plus 2-3 more that get used every 30-120 seconds. In the former case, it was fully possible to operate at near maximum effectiveness with the game's terrible standard interface. In the latter, the limitations would be crippling and I would elect not to play at all in preference to using it. That's how I'm starting to feel with TOR's combat, and I'm not yet even level 20. Either combat ability usage needs to be simplified to fit the limitations of the UI, or the UI advanced enough to accommodate the desired level of combat complexity.

Edited April 21, 2012 by Humanoid

[Gromnir]

Sprint being available for all levels and being able to match my chestpiece colors has made this a different game for me.

 

...

 

 

am just not sure how to respond.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hurlshort]

TOR totally suffers from way too many abilities.

[Raithe]

It's all in arranging things on four ability bars in a way which makes sense..

 

of course, if you take time off from playing one character.. it can take a little bit to figure out exactly what everything is and where you put it on those bars...

 

Had a fun couple of hours running through the full Taral V / Maelstrom Prison with my sister and guildmembers. First time I'd actually done that. Was quite entertaining and fast paced.

[Calax]

It's all in arranging things on four ability bars in a way which makes sense..

 

of course, if you take time off from playing one character.. it can take a little bit to figure out exactly what everything is and where you put it on those bars...

 

Had a fun couple of hours running through the full Taral V / Maelstrom Prison with my sister and guildmembers. First time I'd actually done that. Was quite entertaining and fast paced.

Yeah, That entire dungeon is quite awesome.

[Raithe]

Yeah, That entire dungeon is quite awesome.

 

And, most importantly.. You get to shoot Kilran in the Face!

Man, that was a happy dance moment for my smuggler.

[Spider]

I tried the Bounty Hunter too - had more fun with it than the smuggler in terms of combat mechanics, but it's not really doing anything for me plotwise. I mean the plot drivers are:

1) Participate in some sort of Wild Hunt for fame and glory; and 2) revenge for a guy you met 5 minutes ago.

 

 

Between this and the Sith Warrior that I tried immediately before, I also feel like there's less decision space for me personally when resolving quests - it's fairly frequently either chaotic stupid or obedient patsy. I suppose the cartoon villainy is the fault of the setting more than the game specifically, but yeah, I think I'll lean towards the Republic instead for better roleplaying freedom.

 

---

 

And now for the rant which I've delayed a bit prior until I got a taste of how it applies to the different classes. In the end it made no difference however, it's the same one if I had stuck with just the one class.

 

In the end, I think what will be the killer for me are the UI limitations. Sure, it's unfair to compare seven years worth of user-driven interface ingenuity in WoW (at one point, infamously, going to the extent of being able to draw 3D objects directly onto the gameworld). But the closedness of the design in terms of allowing any experimentation user-side at all is potentially a terminal issue for any MMO. Bioware has been able to get aware by making their single-player games progressively less and less customisable over the past decade, but extending such a policy to SWTOR is a case of self-inflicted foot-severing.

 

Further, I think it's also a case of a disparity between the design of character abilities and the backing of the interface required to effectively use them. My UI for WoW circa 2005 was roughly about as functional as TOR's today. Critically, however, TOR's combat complexity aspires to be about the same as WoW's circa 2012. A sensible goal, to be sure, but the player flat out doesn't have the tools to use the abilities effectively.

 

To wit: In 2005, a typical class would use two, maybe three abilities total over the course of a standard battle. In 2012, it's more like 5-6 in constant use, plus 2-3 more that get used every 30-120 seconds. In the former case, it was fully possible to operate at near maximum effectiveness with the game's terrible standard interface. In the latter, the limitations would be crippling and I would elect not to play at all in preference to using it. That's how I'm starting to feel with TOR's combat, and I'm not yet even level 20. Either combat ability usage needs to be simplified to fit the limitations of the UI, or the UI advanced enough to accommodate the desired level of combat complexity.

 

The interface editor in update 1.2 does help a lot though. It's still not perfect (the extremely small buff icons on party members are annoying for instance) but it's a step in the right direction at least.

[Humanoid]

Yeah, the movable UI elements that I didn't have during my first trial are an improvement in an absolute sense, but my problem is less button placement (since I'm fairly used to managing MMO keybinds) but the lack of feedback. How much longer is the cooldown on ability X? Has ability Y triggered? Is debuff Z currently applied to the target? In SWTOR the solution to all three of those issues, and more, is to keep goggling at your main hotbar and/or the tiny buff icons above the player and target unit frames. In that other big MMO, this information is available to the API and can be shown any way I like.

 

A specific example:

- The bounty hunter has a "Rail Shot" ability that does high instant damage, but can only be used if the target has a damage-over-time effect on them. Problem is, my source of damage-over-time is applied completely randomly so I have no predictable way of knowing whether Rail Shot can be used currently without focusing all my attention on my buttons. I have no intention of doing that, so presently I just disregard the ability altogether - fine so far for levelling but I expect such an approach is not viable at max level.

 

An ability of this nature is straight out of WoW - however in that game I would typically solve the information issue with any combination of a) having a big horizontal timer bar showing time remaining on my DoT effects; b) having a large 2D graphic overlaid on the middle of the screen pop up; and c) a customisable audio cue every time the ability became available.

 

Other similar examples:

- Sith Warrior's Retaliation ability, that only is available after a successful defense (I assume this means after dodging or deflecting a blow). It's nigh-impossible to notice when that actually happens.

- Smuggler's Vital Shot. A straightforward enough ability, a DoT with a fixed timer. But even this is more effort than it's worth to use, because to see the duration of the DoT currently, and therefore when I need to reapply it, I have to stare at the tiny icon above the enemy portrait. Suffice it to say, I don't bother using this ability either.

[Spider]

How much longer is the cooldown on ability X?

 

This there is a setting for, you can get a second counter on the abilities telling how much is left before they become available. And if you want them to flash when they go off cooldown.

 

I do agree that visual representation of applied effects leaves a lot to be desired, but I don't think the ones you mention are quite so bad. I don't know if there is a DoT in one of the other trees, but in the Arsenal tree for a Mercenary, rail shot only cares about heat signature, which a target (at high enough level) gets two of each time you fire Tracer Missile (which stacks to max 5). Basically this means you'll always start by firing three tracer missiles at a target, then your other attacks. And while your other attacks are on cooldown you'll keep firing tracer missiles, so the debuff will basically never go away. Ie, you don't really need to keep track of it.

 

It's a bit worse with Unload in that case, since there is a chance for tracer missile to give you a buff that boosts your unloads. But since it also refreshes the cooldown of unload, it's basically just a matter of activating unload whenever it's off coolddown.

 

Smuggler's vital shot I guess maps directly to corrosive dart, if that's the case it's an ability you'll basically only want to use if you're specced into Lethality (on an IA, maybe Dirty Fighting on the smuggler, not sure). If you have that spec, it basically revolves around keeping your dots up, so there it's very annoying.

 

Retaliation I personally never found to be a problem though. Basically if it can be cast (ie the button isn't grayed out), then just cast it. But I think I'm slightly at advantage here, since I am playing as a healer it is far more natural for me to keep my main focus on the health bars and their surroundings rather than further up in the screen, something that has carried over when I play other classes.

 

But I do agree with your major point, as I said. Again, since I play a healer class, I need to keep track of the bookkeeping in a fight. This get's especially bad in a raid environment, because the applied effects icons are so small. I have a HoT effect that wants to be stacked twice on each target, but when I reapply it, it only needs to be cast once if it hasn't run out. But it's very hard for me to see when it's about to run out on anyone except my main target. Also, seeing deuffs and DoTs on party members is extremely hard, and to know whether I can cleanse them or not, that just can't be done.

 

So yeah, a lot needs to be improved in the UI, but they are working on it. The customization is the start of their ui design work, not the end, there will be more to come in the future.

[Humanoid]

If it gets less awkward at higher levels then that's good news - certainly wasn't reliable on my level 12 hunter. But yeah, I'm kind of splitting attention at the moment because none of my three current classes really hit the spot. But since I doubt I'll ever play long term, the prize will probably go to the most compelling storyline.

 

 

And that description of healing does sound nasty - and this is coming from someone who has healed extensively in WoW with all four healing classes. After years of never needing to look at my hotbars during combat, it's certainly a jolt back to the past. I'm definitely not after something like classic WoW's "decursive" mod, which with a single keypress, scanned all 40 people in a raid, then cast the appropriate cleansing spell on the first valid target. But what I wouldn't be able to live without at a high level of play is a "clique" type mod - essentially context-sensitive mouse clicks to activate certain abilities.

 

 

 

And I've just had my first taste of space combat and am now having unpleasant flashbacks to the awful Rebel Assault.

Edited April 22, 2012 by Humanoid

[Hurlshort]

Shut your mouth, Rebel Assault was arcadey goodness

[Humanoid]

Rebel Assault is possibly the driving reason for my intense dislike of Star Wars in general, since it was my first real exposure to the setting. No, I haven't watched the movies in full to this day. Anyway, like so many other people, I got it with my Sound Blaster 16 + CD-ROM drive bundle, and it certainly was a disappointing introduction to the brave new world of "multimedia" gaming. It was over three years after Wing Commander for goodness.

 

Fortunately the bundle contained some better stuff like Strike Commander, Ultima 8, Syndicate and Civilization.

[Hurlshort]

You can't really compare Rebel Assault to a game like Wing Commander, that's like comparing Microsoft Flight Simulator to a top down shooter. Rebel Assault is clearly an arcade game.

 

Comparing Wing Commander to Tie Fighter makes more sense. But in TOR, the whole space combat thing is simply a minigame. Sure, I'd love a fleshed out space game where I could fly from place to place, but there are some limits to game development here, that would be a huge addition.

[Humanoid]

Sure, but it's more an example of technological "advancement" leading to less gameplay, not more. It was the same as the dawn of the 3D era where in terms of actual results, the games both looked worse and played worse than their direct predecessors. Rebel Assault's gameplay after all was a looping video overlaid with a targetting cursor. Arcade games in the preceding decade were magnitudes more involved. Star Fox was apparently released earlier that same year.

 

 

But yeah, the TOR thing is more a case of "whatever, as long as I can ignore it" - people find their own niche in terms of fun in MMOs so I don't mind that it's there. I certainly didn't feel like I was missing out in WoW, not engaging in any PvP whatsoever in my last 4 years of it.

[Raithe]

I have to admit, it puts me in mind of the old Afterburner arcade game. For that slight break in normal gameplay, you get to learn the "waves" as such of the enemy and the bonus mission objectives, then do a whole lot of shooting with good star wars music playing heroically in the background..

[Malcador]

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/04/23/bioware-doing-anything-and-everything-to-keep-players-logging-in-to-swtor/

[Humanoid]

I'm in both their "new subscriptions" and "lost subscriptions" columns this month, signed up but immediately cancelled the recurring sub.

 

 

Interesting enough to play a month while I wait to buy a new video card to play Twitcher 2, but 95% sure I won't renew in either the short or medium term.

[Hurlshort]

This is probably going to be a game I get really into for a month or two at a time, and then barely touch for a couple months.

[Raithe]

I think it's one I'm going to keep plugging away at. I've got a handful of characters I bounce between, although I tend to focus on one for periods of time.. I'm pretty much approaching it as finishing the class-stories for a character in alternating Imperial / Republic style.. with short breaks on my other characters and using higher-level characters to occasionally send gear/credits to my new ones..

 

If I'm in the mood I'll get in an hour here, and hour there, maybe a locked in evening as chance allows.. then might have a week where I hardly touch it at all. Only to return once more...

[Hassat Hunter]

Little costly to play such, no?

At least that would be my concern...