Comments on: [SWTOR] In which Bioware finally nail single player gameplay

By: rowan

rowan — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:38:31 +0000

Um sorry, those are pretty all references from the early game. A trio of jerks that demonstrate their need to be dead froim their opening lines.

By: coppertopper

coppertopper — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:04:07 +0000

^^^^ Might want to warn about spoilers next time you decide to post story endings for a game….

By: Killed in a Smiling Accident. » Blog Archive » We make choices but are constantly foiled by happenstance

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:07:22 +0000

[...] skills such as taunts or a “heal other” ability that are completely useless when solo. Spinks also has a fine post about the way the game ramps up the difficulty to introduce certain abilities and concepts; at the [...]

By: spinks

spinks — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 06:24:04 +0000

I’d certainly like to see them incorporate some of this into their future single player games.

By: Tesh

Tesh — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:38:14 +0000

I maintain that if it’s a great single player game design, it should have been a single player offline game. *shrug*

By: Remianen

Remianen — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:27:28 +0000

The only complaint I have (and it’s not much of one) is how heavy BW’s writers go building “heel heat” for the people some classes are gunning for. Skavak for Smugglers (Tarro Blood for BHs too), for example, becomes such a hemorrhoid that you really just want to kill him and get it over with already. Dunno if you get to do it or not though I hope so (just like I hope my Inquisitor gets to kill the Overseer from that class’s starting missions). Then again, maybe it’s me. I also despise Aric Jorgan and the moment Elara joins the squad, I make him my permanent craftmonkey.

But I think the stories, and following them, takes some of the heat off of the actual gameplay mechanics (though as you said, those aren’t too shabby either).

By: Bernard

Bernard — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 01:26:46 +0000

After levelling an operative to 20 I found that many of my friends were on a different server.

I rerolled on that server and have enjoyed the process a lot the second time, even though I was repeating many of the same quests. The class-based dialogue options make a huge difference, as does the dark/light alignment choices.
Taking things slowly, hunting datacrons, reading codex lore and doing a little crafting is all fun. I’m also looking forward to putting together a custom orange set.

At this stage, I can see myself playing all 8 basic classes to 50 before I quit. Probably with a break in the middle for Diablo3.

By: pkudude99

pkudude99 — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:13:05 +0000

What server are you on? My PUG experiences have still been pretty crappy. Seems likes there’s always at least 1 person who can’t adapt. Sadly, the last PUG I was in, it was actually a guildie of mine that as the moron. When he ragequit after several wipes (and a couple of fights where he died almost immediately and the other 3 of us pulled it off — yes, he was dps who thought he could also tank and pull and that we didn’t need CC. and yeah, he might be a guildie, but he’s now on my “Do Not Group” list) the other 3 of us literally said “Good riddance!” in group chat, then recruited someone to replace him and. . . were just fine after that.

Next group after that was successful, but still tons of mistakes. I’d mark a CC target and then the dps would attack it 1st, in spite of it being marked. It got better over time, but once we’d completed the quest no one wanted to keep killing mobs to finish the bonus part of the quest. Too stressful with all the mistakes.

As far as the solo difficulty goes, it seems like if you prioritize your companion’s gear over your own and get as much presence as you can (including a presence stim) that it’s a lot easier than if you gear yourself up and give the companion your old leftovers. I’m also a healer and using a tank companion, so I can solo champion level mobs, even though my tank is supposedly a crappy companion. Proof here if you care to see. Screenie’s about halfway down the post.

By: Xintia

Xintia — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:04:13 +0000

When Bioware said that this game would be just as much about the journey (leveling) as the destination (endgame) they weren’t kidding. I have a mid 40′s Imperial and a mid 30′s Republic character and I have been enjoying the process immensely on both counts. I agree with some of the sentiments stated above in that some aspects of SW:TOR’s single-player experience would have been accepted as common place several years ago. However it is difficult to “dial back” people’s expectations of these sort of things. As Blizzard just found out with Cataclysm, trying to “put the genie back in the bottle” and raise difficulty again can have the opposite affect that you anticipate.

I haven’t seen the endgame personally yet so I can’t directly comment, but I have confidence Bioware can produce an engaging experience at that point as well. What will be interesting to see from my perspective is, will the “traditional” sort of player who is focused on endgame care about the stories that BIoware is trying to tell? Or will they simply get frustrated with having to mash the spacebar to raid?

By: Shintar

Shintar — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:10:18 +0000

I’ve really been enjoying the difficulty too. The fact that mobs come in groups of different strengths adds a lot to the experience, because you handle an elite differently than two strong ones, a group of weak ones, or any mix of them together, so it never comes down to just learning your one true rotation and spamming that on every pull.

I do think it makes for smarter players too. I’ve been pugging some heroic quests in the last couple of days and everyone already seems to know how to crowd control, focus fire, when to off-heal etc. without needing much prompting, which is very nice.