SWTOR Check

It has been almost a month since SWTOR launched (well EGA anyways) so I thought I would update my thoughts on the game so far.

Companions

The companions are a great addition to gaming. For so long, you would go into a dangerous situation alone and take on scores of bad guys. Now you have a friend with you. SWTOR isn’t the first game to do it, STO at least had bridge crew, but it is the best. Your companions are more than just an extra weapon, they have a personality, are involved in (some of) the conversations and have their own story quests.

The companion AI was also very well done. My smuggler has a few mezzes that break on damage. Not once has a companion broken the mez by shooting the wrong NPC, even if he was already attacking that guy or its the only one remaining. Now, some companions have some AOE skills which they will use and break the mez, but that’s the downside to AOE I suppose.

Now, one of the downsides to great companions is having several. As we’ll talk about in the next section, equipping yourself and a companion gets expensive. So you are forced to only upgrade one and since they all use different stats, you can’t share stuff between them, usually. This is good if you keep every loot item you find, you can half equip them. But it usually means that you just run with one companion, and use the others as crafting mission minions.

Gear, Crafting, Economy

Moddable gear is a great concept. Being able to take something you like and keep it by upgrading the components is fun and better dynamic to always replacing all your gear every few levels. However, it can be a pain too. If you find one or two pieces of armor you like, but the others don’t match, then you are constantly switching out some pieces and changing your look. Or if you prefer modded armor, but can only find some that you don’t like the look of.

Crafting is done really well. There is the basics of it, grind up to 400 crafting level. But that only gets you so far. To make the worthwhile stuff, you need to Reverse Engineer things and buy all of the schematics (very, very expensive). Running missions to get the supplies takes time and money.  Finding the purple components can take quite awhile. This gets annoying when you need 4 to make something, but even when you find some, it only yields 3 of them.

Gathering and Reverse Engineering can also get a little imbalanced. There is usually one resource you get a lot of and another kind you don’t get much of. Like at grade 4 scavenging, I have tons of extra Fibermesh, but can’t get enough Resinite.

How crafting will fair at the top levels and how each crafting profession will hold up remains to be seen. Is crafting useful to a level 50, or is all the best stuff PVP and Raid rewards? Is there something each profession can contribute? For instance, Biochem, they can make an infinite use medpac, but only people with skill in biochem can use it. But are their non-infinite use ones worth the price?

I’ve done Armstech and Cybertech. So far, Cybertech seems to have far more versatility. They made earpieces, armor upgrades, mods, droid gear, space ship parts, grenades. My armstech, he makes guns and barrels. Nothing consumable. And so far, with reverse engineering, I have never succeeded in getting a higher level schematic on guns, just the barrels. Now, I can make nice barrels which helps me keep my smugglers gun top of the line. But while leveling, no one can afford to buy a gun for a price I’d be willing to sell it. And at max level, everyone will likely get weapons elsewhere.

Mechanics

This kind of fits under economy, but that section was getting long so I’m lumping it with mechanics. Credits. They are hard to come by. At least if you are doing crafting. Both my characters are consistently broke. My crafting levels are high and I can make stuff for myself, but never everything I want. I just don’t have the money to get the resources I need. And my skills are way out of date because they are so damn expensive. I mean really annoyingly expensive.

And that’s not including the way overprices vehicle skills. I’ll never have 210k to afford vehicle level 2. Much less whatever level 3 will cost. I can’t even afford the 4 unclaimed skills my level 38 has. Each cost ~15k. I can make 20k per day running space missions. And make decent money questing. But I spend it all crafting. My own fault, I know.

I can’t decide if this is good game design or not. It keeps hyperinflation from occurring if its hard to make money and things are expensive. If you reach level 50 and have to play for awhile to afford to get all your skills and crafting levels up, it gives you something to do. But it is annoying. Mainly the skills. I don’t mind the crafting cost. But dreading gaining a level because upgrading skill will break the bank is counter productive.

As far as other game mechanics go, they work pretty well. My smuggler-scoundrel is very adaptable. I can counter many attacks and do decent damage. I can stealth past stuff I don’t want to fight. But I’m not a tank and don’t do the best damage. Throw an armor break on me and I drop quickly.

My Jedi Sentinel is less versatile. He’s got decent damage, but it doesn’t feel much better than the smuggler. But he has no heals. Throw a few DOT’s on him (and certain bad guys will throw ALOT of DOT’s) and he drops like a rock. Damage avoidance skills don’t help against DOT’s. And  healing only comes from medpacs which are every 90sec.  For the lack of versatility, I feel he should be able to tear guys apart really fast.

Yet to Come

One of SWTOR’s best aspects is the yet to come. I have 6 professions I haven’t tried yet. I haven’t gotten to end game on the two I have. The story is great and I want to find out how it ends.

I am curious what the Legacy system turns out to be. I have reached level 2 with the Ocaitchi Clan. What will that mean? Will I get access to better gear for new characters? Should I avoid creating characters on other servers so I can build up that Legacy XP here?

What updates are coming for guilds? They are pretty weak right now. We need a bank. Will we get capitalships or guild halls or something? Those would be cool, but only if done right. So far, the game mechanics don’t allow for decorating or customizing environments. To make a guildhall/capitalship cool, it needs to be customizable (and hopefully useable in some guild space missions).

Speaking of space, will this grow and improve? It’s a fun distraction, but I’d prefer to be able to fly my ship myself instead of be on rails. Missions would have to be redesigned though. They would be so easy if you could pick your course. Though, Archenar Interception would be a pain flying through that asteroid field.

So in conclusion, I’m still having fun and looking forward to what’s to come.