The Glade 4.0

SW:TOR Beta Impressions. (maybe some spoilers, but nothing huge I think)

As an old EQ vet, in addition to years in WoW, Vanguard Beta(and a month or two of release), CoH, and most recently Rift, I have had my share of MMO experiences. Some good, some bad, some godawful and others downright perplexing. It is to this last point that I look to SW:TOR.

A multibillion dollar IP with hundreds of millions of seed money pumped into it, SW:TOR was supposed to be the second coming of the MMO Messiah. Instead, what we got was a game that would have been revolutionary in 2008. But before you pick up your torches and pitchforks, let me say that I didn’t hate it.

Let me explain.

Bioware is known for their immersive story driven products. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, KOTOR, Jade Empire, etc, On this front, SW:TOR provides beautifully. The story is beautifully voice acted, compelling, and serves as a carrot for players to drive through the game. Where this falls down is in the side quests. They are all also fully voiced and cutscened. Granted, its nice to see that some thought went into the sidequests and NPC motivations for wanting us to go kill 10 rats or whatever, but after a while, it got a little tiresome for me. Then, I had somewhat of an epiphany. This isn’t an MMO, and I shouldn’t be playing it like it is. Its a MSORPG. Change out the Multi for Single... and SW:TOR works. By making that simple shift to my mental paradigm, the sidequests became less tedious and repetitive and more a part of the story. Granted, some of the Light/Dark choices are a bit boggling, but BW’s always been a little weird like that.

I played a Trooper from 1-22 or so, experiencing Ord Mantell, Coruscant, and Taris. Toward the end of Beta I flew to Corellia, and Hoth and poked my nose around a bit (but only a bit.. l47 mobs would have eaten me alive). What I saw of the environment and whatnot I generally liked. With one exception. The Running. Oh. My. God. The Running. In EQ, you had this huge, open world with few quests to deal with. Leveling was spent mostly finding a camp and pulling mobs till your eyes bled. This encouraged people to group, and play the game together. Sitting around Derv 1 in N Ro for example, you could talk to your friends and get to know people. WoW introduced leveling by questing. This enabled solo play as players ran from quest hub to quest hub, and back out into the vast wilderness to kill things and take their vitals. This could be why the WoW community is so godawful... but I digress. In SW:TOR, questing is of the WoW model, but the world feels as huge as the EQ model. Imagine your quest hub is in Kelethin, and all your quest mobs are in Unrest. Substitute Mulgore and... I dunno, Thousand Needles for you WoWers. To help alleviate this, every character gets “Sprint”, a toggled ability that gives you a 35% out of combat speed boost. At level 14. Which is about halfway through Coruscant (which is bloody huge). The problem I have with this is, once you get sprint, you never turn it off. Its a strange design decision for sure, and I’m thinking that just because WoW did it with a couple of classes, a travel boost is good for all classes @14. The reality is, running isn’t fun. Shooting things, and generally causing havoc is. In short, it takes too long to get to the dinosaurs. This is an easy fix, provide sprint at level 1, or even 5, and make it 50%. The game world is too large and too empty at times to just be mindlessly autorunning through it.

Too large and too empty? Yeah. It feels generally lifeless. Mobs stand around in small groups, waiting to be killed, NPCs stand around generally unable to be interacted with, even with some sort of comment when you click on them. When running from a quest hub on Taris to where the mobs were at, there wasn’t much going on. It felt generally lifeless. And then I got stuck.

But I’m getting WAY ahead of myself here. Lets go back to Ord Mantell. Ord Mantell is one of two starting areas for the Republic. Troopers and Smugglers start here. The Jedi all start on another world. A starter area is generally for new players to get the feel of the game, how some mechanics work, and so on. This starter zone does that. Here’s your trainer, here’s some shops, here’s a mailbox, etc. Respawn on mobs wasn’t bad, but respawn on objects was lengthy. Unless this is tweaked for release, some quests are going to be an absolute nightmare. Especially if the have as many players as they have preorders. Run through your sidequests, and your class quest progresses alongside it. You're also introduced to your first “heroic” area. In this area, mobs are all strongs and elites (The game has a mob ranking system, weak, normal, strong, elite, champion), and it was suggested 2+ members. Being somewhat antisocial, I tried to solo everything. And I found out that 2+ is just a guideline. Play smart, and its no big deal. Melee range on mobs is a bit too long which was annoying as I should be able to kite things with my assault cannon, but eh NBD really. So, to sum Ord up, its a starter zone, and it serves its purpose. From there, its off to Coruscant!

But before you leave, here’s your companion. SW:TOR has a companion system, in that every class in the game is a pet class. Its kinda neat, and they’re pretty functional, if overly annoying and chatty at times. Specifically, the smuggler companion. See, Corso Riggs thinks he’s a badass. And he’s constantly telling everyone in hearing range just how badass he is. There’s a Jedi companion that’s just as bad, but I can’t recall her name off the top of my head. I don’t mind a little verisimilitude in my games, and the chatty companion isn’t a bad thing per se, but when you’re around a dozen smugglers... Corso gets *really* grating. A simple toggle for “All”, “Mine” and “None” companion voices would go a long way. However, your companion is a nice tool to have handy. They tank, heal, and DPS for you, so that elite mobs are now soloable, and indeed, with clever play, Champion mobs are as well. 4 man instances (Flashpoints) are duoable with companions if you’re on your toes.

But why would you ever want to! Without a doubt, the Flashpoints are absolutely the best part of the game. I haven’t actually had this much fun in an MMO in a long, long time. Especially running through as a vicious, puppy murdering bastard of a trooper with three Jedi. Dialogue options are based on a roll system. Everyone puts in their choice for dialogue, and highest roll talks. Its particularly hilarious when the VPMB wins the roll, to what I’m sure are the horrified looks of the three Jedi standing about. See, there are some pretty big choices in the first couple of Flashpoints which I don’t want to spoil for anyone. I was actually paralyzed with laughter at the second huge choice our group ran into in Hammer Station (the second FP). Literally, tears in my eyes. But that’s also a function of the people I was playing with. I think this is a game for you and a few close friends to enjoy. PUGing may not provide the same experience, unfortunately.

Also unfortunate are a couple of things that really turned me off about the game. The good news is these are things that can be easily remedied. I’ll start with the UI. Remember way back, when we had EQ’s basic UI? 6 hotbuttons, a chat pane, and a smallish game window? Then EQ released the ability to skin your UI, and all was good. That evolved further to WoW’s UI with multiple hotbutton bars, minimap, group interface, etc that could all be modded with its robust LUA system to look like whatever the heck you wanted. Then, IMO, the pinnacle of UI design was reached with Rift’s fully customizable, movable, scalable out of the box UI. That is what the UI should have been. Instead, we get the UI from WoW vanilla... without the modding tools. You can’t move it, you can’t scale it, and with certain exceptions (I just saw the raidframe thing tonight, and focus mechanic, so I can’t comment *too* much on them) it is as it is in a screenshot. I hope they have mods, and UI flexibility in mind soon. Healing is more difficult than it needed to be with the group bars in the lower left, and no target of target feature. In addition to this, there is *zero* macro support available. So I can’t create an @mouseover macro for my heals. Its click, cast. Retarget, cast. Granted, the DPS and tank classes aren’t that squishy as to need immediate attention, but sometimes the poo hits the fan and once you get behind, its tough to catch back up. Not to mention, staring at health bars playing whackamole is a mechanic that needs to die. In a fire. while having acid poured on it. and then exploded.

The other thing that puzzled me as to why it wasn’t included at launch (remember this game has been in development for 5+ years and has had the benefit of seeing what worked and doesn’t work in a multitude of other MMOs.), is a dual-spec system. Granted, the ability to change AC(advanced class) isn’t on the table due to BW’s story concerns, but changing spec within that AC should be allowed. And, it is. For cost. First respec is free. Second is 200 credits. Third is 2000 and so on. Since I’m going to be playing a healer... I would really like the ability to have a DPS spec for solo questing, or if I join a group that already has a healer, I would like to be able to play with friends as DPS without incurring significant monetary or time penalties. WoW has it, Rift has it in spades, and its a shame that SW:TOR does not have it. In addition to the ginormous respec fees, inventory has the same issue. You start with 40(?) inventory slots. An additional row of 10 is 5k. The second row is 20, and the third is 50. To be fair, your companion has a button you can push that makes him go sell all your grey items. He leaves, and comes back with the cash in 60 seconds. Strangely, merchants do not provide this functionality. If you’re standing at a merchant with a bag full of grey crap, its more efficient to send your companion to sell things than having a “sell all crap” button on the merchant interface.

SW:TOR does have space combat. If you liked Starfox 64. The current implementation of space combat is an on rails tunnel shooter with generic objectives. It felt tacked on, and poorly implemented, but not completely without entertainment value. For what it is, its fairly entertaining, if shallow, and a diversion from murdering things.

Ah, the murdering of things out in the world that provide you pretty little chunks of XP and aforementioned grey items. For me, MMOs are about combat and exploration. Leveling and advancing gear and skills. So, it stands to reason that for me, an MMO has to have smooth, robust gameplay in addition to a compelling reason to be out in the wilderness, murdering things and taking their stuff. SW:TOR provides the reason very well. However, the combat system feels slow, nonresponsive, and clunky. Every ability in the game has a 1.5 second GCD. even the instant ones. In addition to this overly lengthy GCD, many skills are on a lengthier C/D of 15-60 seconds. As a trooper, 5 of my 8 main skills were on a C/D of 15 seconds or longer. Unfortunately this left me spamming my “auto attack” ability. Since the game doesn’t have auto attack, once you’re out of “ammo”, “force”, or “focus”, you have one button to push. I had a “reload” button, but it was on a 2 min C/D. Sometimes, there didn’t feel a real good connection to pressing the button, and something happening on the screen. For example, I had “Mortar Strike” which is a fairly powerful attack, on a 1M C/D. Its a 3 second channeled attack that has an animation that’s 2 seconds long. So for the first second or so your character just kinda stands there idling. It sounds a little nitpicky, but gameplay is just as important, if not more important than story. If the gameplay is not fantastic, all the story and graphics in the world aren’t going to help you once the story is complete...

True though, Beta is Beta, but not in this case. There are probably some bug fixes, and server optimization, but I believe that the game we saw this weekend is the ultimate release candidate. Stories of a Magical Rainbow Build that BW is keeping secret don’t particularly make sense. I can believe that Ultra textures and AA will be enabled @ release, sure. But I’m a little worried that its not completely done. I ran into a bugged area on Taris in which I would get stuck in the environment. No jumping, no running, stuck in one place. Used the /stuck command, died and rezzed there... stuck again. Used /stuck again, rezzed at the checkpoint, and ran on only to get stuck in a different place. Maddening. In any event, I doubt that Dual Spec, a completely revamped UI, serious combat changes and all that will be in the retail build.

So, overall, it sounds like I’m down on SW:TOR. But that’s not entirely the case. What I am with it is disappointed. Bioware has had 5+ years and hundreds of millions of dollars to deliver the next great thing in gaming history. In doing so, they seem to have followed WoW’s initial design to the letter, added a Star Wars skin and voice acting and ignored all of the quality of life advances that MMORPGs have come up with since 2008. I have still preordered the game, and I am looking forward to murdering puppies with friends in the game.

Because Flashpoints are just that good.

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Holy shitsnacks!

You hit on most of my gripes, there, too. I'd have rather have seen this as a Diablo-esque persistent-matchmaking game with some anti-hack stuff built in than a full-blown MMO. It feels like a KotOR game that I can play with friends -- but have to pay a subscription fee to do, which is.. a little difficult to swallow.

I will point out that 1.5 second GCDs are pretty standard, and you're just spoiled with your WoW and Rift 1-second rogue GCDs, which are supposed to feel like a fast exception in comparison, rather than the norm. However, I do agree with you that the disparity between the 1.5 second GCD and the 1 second max queue is... a poor design decision.

Dual spec is coming shortly post-launch. Hopefully either companion filtering (I agree, All, None, Mine, and Group would be best) is also incoming, or at the very least, proper distance-scaled volume so you're only hearing the ones that are actually nearby.

There used to be a sell greys button for merchants, I'm not sure when they ditched it. Torchlight-esque companion selling is an adequate substitute, I suppose, especially if you're duoing.

And that's the crux of the matter. It's a game I really want to play duo. The solo content designed to be "solo + companion" shouldn't be eye-gougingly trivial to run in a duo with your companions out crafting or whatnot... but I just wish the format were such that I could get the duo experience in an buy-and-play-co-op pricing structure. Even if that means they release and sell the current content as two games with an expansion pack or two each.

In any event, the Heroic 4 content and, now, the Flashpoints have earned this game a purchase from me, and recommendations to give it a shot to people whom I know have enjoyed the theme park MMO formula (or Bioware stories) in the past.

I just wish it had pushed outside the comfort zone a bit more.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yeah. I don't mind the 60 buck entry fee, but the $15 a month is a bit much for a single player game.



Both WoW and Rift have abilities that are off the GCD. Reactives and CC/interrupt abilities. I've also played to 80 in WoW a DK and a Shaman, raided with both of them. In Rift I've played all 4 classes, and a multitude of souls. Rarely did I feel like I was waiting on the GCD as much as I was in this game.

Trooper has "High Impact shot". This is a reactive that requires the target to be knocked down or on fire. Its attached to the GCD, AND on a 15 second C/D. Its difficult to work that, heck, anything on a 15sec c/d into anything approaching a rotation.

Lets take an example. Fys the trooper is out killing rats for Bob the NPC. She spots a group of three rats, standing in a hallway. Press Mortar Strike, target the boom, and fire! Um... Fire! Oh, there it goes. Boom boom boom! All three rats have been extinguished. That's on a 1m C/D. She's ok with that, its powerful. So then there's another group of rats. Lets kill them! Open with explosive shot, one rat falls down. High impact shot, that rat dies. The other two rats come running up. Explosive shot the next, auto fire it, that's a 3 second channeled ability on a 15 sec c/d. Its not quite dead, so throw in the Auto Attack "hammer shot", and that rat dies. Ok, now for the third rat. Hm. All her cool stuff is on C/D still, so I guess I'll just hammer shot it to death. She could use "charged bolts" which is a 3 second cast squirt of mediocre damage, but why? Hammer shot is just about as powerful, is instant cast, can be cast on the run, and doesn't take any ammo.



This game sorely *needs* dual spec.


They must have disabled it with the "Match colors to chestpiece" button with this beta.



I don't think EA would let them. I get the feeling Bioware was told, "Make us a Star Wars MMO that's exactly like WoW, but better". But in doing so, they picked the WoW from BC era, and not WoW as it is now. Honestly, if it was exactly like WoW of the WotLK era, but with blasters and Lightsabers... they'd have a win. Sadly, its not that good. As much as I hate what WoW has become, I can't deny that as a gameplay experience... it was pretty damn good. Keyword there is Was though.

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Holy shitsnacks!

How did you miss the single coolest move the trooper has before Gut? Stock strike would have decimated that last rat!

WotLK WoW was horrible, though. BC WoW was arguably the best era of WoW.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

But then I'd have rat guts all over my rifle. Honestly, I think I pressed stock strike like three times before removing it from my bars around 14ish.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Content wise, sure. Gameplay wise, with the quality of life things I was talking about in my post, it was better.

The one overarching thing that kept coming through my head is its not ready. But that begs the question... what has Bioware been doing with all the money and time they've had so far? A lot of my concerns about the game should honestly be in at launch. Dual Spec? Its coming. UI mods? They're coming. etc. Stuff that Rift launched with, with a fraction of the money and development time. Its inexcusable.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Gasp! Sacrilege! I think my trooper build will be based around stock strike.

On topic though, I have been out of MMOs for a few years, I skipped WOW, COH, Rift. I've been waiting for this game. I'd like it to be more than it is, however, playing it, I found myself eager to see what's next in the story. I was hooked on the bounty hunter story in my first weekend test, and the trooper and Jedi this last weekend. I can't wait for the 20th.

Rift was pretty polished at launch, but had no soul (no pun intended). SW:TOR has soul, so I'm willing to give it a chance to polish itself up post-launch. Yes, we all know that EA is the elephant in the room, and probably the reason why Bioware wasn't let off the leash a bit more when it comes to actual combat and levelling mechanics.

As for off-GCD abilities, I can think of two -- riposte for knights, and a 2-charge crit chance buff for consulars. So they're there; there isn't some kind of "no off-GCD abilities!" hard and fast rule. I get the feeling it's a rule of thumb, though, for the developers, simply because it's easier to balance that way. Also, given the (current?) stance on macroing, having a bunch of reactives off GCD would be a UI nightmare, anyways. It "worked" in Rift because you could make 3-macro rotations for proc-heavy builds, but that was abysmal to balance, as they found out.

Balance-wise, the more I've looked at more classes, the more I've noted that there's kind of a deliberate sort of sense to pretty much everything I've looked at. The biggest two "WTF?" reactions I've had went from "wow, that's a pointless ability" to "Oh, I see the reason people would use this ability here in the talent tree."

Namely, they were riposte and project.

Project, I noticed playing my Shadow in the October beta weekend. For those who haven't, non-Sage Consulars have a 100 Force pool that regenerates at a constant rate of like 8 a second. The staple melee move, double strike, is a 25 point Force move. In other words, you can't even keep an alternating double strike/freebie rotation going indefinitely.

Now, knowing that, project is a 45 point move that does more damage than double strike.. but is way less Force efficient and on a cooldown. So, sure, it's a bit more bursty, and can be used at medium range.. but it takes an already resource-starved rotation and makes it even more Force-hungry.

Then, when I got to my AC, I realized that Shadows do all kinds of wacky things to project. Tanky Shadows can use it as a big source of their overall threat. Balance Shadows can increase its damage, reduce its cost, and can refresh its cooldown with procs on other moves. Suddenly, it makes more sense as a move. The increased damage and reduced cost seriously help out its efficiency, the proc mitigates the bummer of a cooldown, etc.


The other one was this past weekend with the Knight's riposte. It's a 3 Focus off-GCD move, usable after a deflect or parry. That does less damage than the staple 3-Focus move Slash. Again, I went, "WTF?" After all, DPS Guardians won't be getting hit to parry or deflect and activate it, and tanks don't really care about the extra burst potential having it off-GCD offers over burning a GCD with Slash, assuming their lower Focus budget can afford to use both it and a GCD damage move in the first place.

Then, I get a chance to look at some of the Guardian tree, and realize that tanks can talent it down to 1 Focus, so now it's a monster damage (and therefore threat) to Focus tool. And then, hey, more talents give it some defensive bonuses or something, too. Now, it makes sense.

Etc. Moments like that, along with some number crunching post-NDA on some database sites to compare abilities for tanks and healers, have left me with the impression that, balance-wise, at least, somebody on the dev team seems pretty well grounded. Which is nice, when a game throws 3 tanks, 3 healers, and potentially 18 dps builds at you, all with different flavors and feels.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

You hit on a lot of my concerns as well, Müs.
Cinematic quests are nice. Very pretty. But for god's sake, enough already. Use it too much and it becomes a millstone dragging the whole experience down.
I actually stood at a merchant, with the buy/sell window open, and sent Corso off on a "sell all grey ****" errand more than once.
Given how almost every AC in the game is designed to do perform as either DPS or (healer or tank), not having dual-spec is almost inexcusable.
Why, oh why they chose to remove the "match my chest" option is beyond me.
I frequently would sit quietly in stealth mode waiting for a couple of CDs to finish up before I'd start the next fight.
I do seem to recall having at least 1 or 2 abilities that were off the GCD, though. Wish I could remember for sure to tell you what they were and assure you they do in fact exist, although it might be even worse for you to hear that some classes got them and others did not.

Kaffis - I totally agree that this seems to me to be a game that would do much better as a 2-player game rather than an MMO. Flashpoints and Heroic 4+ though, definitely fun.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

There's an answer for this. Rumor has it that it was removed for a final texture checking pass. To make sure that everything has a proper color and texture. It should be back @ launch.

As far as off GCD stuff goes, take High Impact Shot for example. It would be perfect for it to be a reactive, off GCD, on an 8ish second C/D. Explosive, BAM High impact. Animations should match cast times too. It felt like I spent a lot of time idling whilst waiting for animations to start or finish. A lot of it is feel, and its hard to quantify. I totally should have taken game footage and put together some vids.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Yeah, I'd like to lower the CD a little on Riposte, because with my focus intake (small), I like using it over Slash.

If I had hit 20, I'd have been thinking long and hard about whether to pick up another defensive CD or to plop those points into defense buffs via riposte.

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Grenade 3 Sports Drink. It's fire in the hole.. Your hole!

Ideally, for Trooper, I'd slash C/Ds by half across the board. INCLUDING the GCD

On the lack of an auto attack:

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Holy shitsnacks!

Just a quick note about no abilities being off the global cooldown: the Sith Warrior has a reactive power that ignores the GCD. It's pretty much the Sith's version of "Overpower" (as it originally was in Vanilla WoW for a Warrior).

I agree the game could still use a bit more polish. But honestly I have not been this sucked-into an MMO in a long time. I have not leveled any character past 15 in LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, DDO, and EQ2. And I haven't hit the halfway mark in Burning Sea, Age of Conan, CoH/CoV. I got bored and burned out fast in all of them. Leveling felt like a chore. The stories didn't engage me. It all felt like the same thing with just a different skin pasted on.

There are the same elements in TOR, but it engaged me more somehow. It flipped on my "I gotta keep playing so I can see more" MMO drive that has been missing in me for years now. TOR became less about grinding so I can see bigger stats, and more about seeing more of this universe and my involvement in it. For me, that was a big win.

And, as I said, my expectations of this game were incredibly low. I was expecting yet more of the same of all the aforementioned MMOs I've given up on. I can't put my finger on it, but it's different.

I pre-ordered this game months ago. I bought the absolute non-special edition of the game that has zero extras because of my low expectations. And it was a game I had not cared to think about much since. On top of that, I've had Star Wars burnout for years now, and here was more crap to add to the pile. But.... Now, all I can think about is that I can't wait for this thing to be released.

Sure, as I said, it could use more polish. But that is something I am not worried about. I have no doubts that Bioware will polish it up over time. If it can sway me, it will sure as hell sway a great many more people. I will happily dump my other MMOs for this one. And I never expected myself to be saying that over this game.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Like I said, I didn't *not* like it. It had some very engaging and entertaining moments. I'm not a SW fanboy by any stretch of the imagination, but this is the only Sci-Fi ish MMO on the market, and if I want Sci-Fi, then TOR is it.

I did like the story. But I felt that VO and cutscenes were overused. I did like the combat, sorta. But it needs a lot of work IMO. The music and ambient sounds were pretty good and rather Star Warsy. No complaint there.

As long as they fix the UI, and provide Dual Spec, I may stay subscribed if its compelling enough after 50. And if I have cool people to murder puppies in front of... then so much the better

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Holy shitsnacks!

Your continuing mentioning of murdering puppies and how you played a smuggler made me realize something: I may just start calling Republic dark-siders and Empire light-siders "Otaku."

But if you're looking for true sci-fi and not fantasy-in-space (which is what Star Wars is), I'd also check out Eve Online or Black Prophecy.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

EvE's too PvP centric. Havent heard of Black Prophecy tho.

And the puppy murdering thing comes from a comment I think Taly made about Bioware games and their light/dark choices.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Black Prophecy is basically if the original X-Wing simulator series was given updated graphics, a beefier engine, and turned into a free-to-play MMORPG.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!