Thoughts and a critique on various aspects of the game world.
Item Enhancement
Top marks for this one Bioware, it's an ingenious mechanic. Rather than having to get whole new items you can swap out components to keep them up to date with your level, it's a great system.
Story
Everyone knows, it works, it's unique, it rocks your socks off.
Combat
Feels very like KOTOR, which is a good thing. Loving the marauder’s sheer brutality at this point. I feel powerful, but as I level up I don't feel like I'm getting more powerful. The tools I'm being given allow me to cope with numbers of enemies that I was taking down at level 5, rather than allowing me to take out multiple strongs or larger groups. Which leads me to my first issue with SWTOR thus far:
Difficulty scaling and enemy variety
This is one thing that is really beginning to get to me in SWTOR. All the enemies are the same. They shoot, or they swing with a melee weapon....that's about it. Almost none of them have grenades, stuns/debuffs/DoT's/knockdowns/heals. The only truly unique fight I've had so far was the Padawan on the Black Talon flashpoint, and it was only one ability, a PBAoE that you had to run away from.
Difficulty scaling should not be limited to making enemies hit harder and have more health, there needs to be an upgrade to the tools that mobs have at their disposal. The most obvious example of this is on the Nar Shaddaa 4 man group quests. Lots of mobs, all with stupid amount of health that you have to chip down while they swing and shoot at you like every other mob encountered thus far. It's not fun, it's not exciting, it's tedious and that's a great shame. They're powerful jedi for goodness sake! These should be dynamic fights that require tactics and adaptation, not the ability to withstand 4 minutes of repetitive combat per encounter.
Social Points
Swing and a miss with this one I feel. Requires huge amounts of points for one level. They aren't farmable as there are a finite amount of conversations to be had and group quests usually only have one at the end, which involves one person getting a whopping 4-8 points. It's entirely down to luck, and as the LFG system is lacking and the group quests are tedious, the motivation to group for anything other than flashpoints is low.
Token/Commendation system
Hit and miss with this one. Probably more along the lines that social points could be. At the end of the area you can choose some powerful rewards for the tokens, so you go into the next area nice and strong. For regular mission areas I think this works well.
Where it doesn't work well is flashpoints. At the end of the Black Talon FP, I had 4 commendations, and the useful items were all about 7-9 tokens a piece. Make it so every member gets one token per boss kill, not one token that everyone has to roll on.
Easily balanced and I'm sure it will be, it was just such a glaring error I felt it warranted comment.
Economy
Seems to fairly balanced at this point, you have to judge what you invest in. You have ample money, but not so much you can gobble up every upgrade you see at every opportunity. Auction House system is a bit dead, but that's to be expected on a testing basis when no one has any idea what anything is worth, or what their items are used for.
Companions
Another superbly implemented system that makes SWTOR unique. Really makes this a Bioware game, and is much better for it. Being able to send companions off to gather and loot for you is a revelation.
Crafting
As a synthweaver I feel the actual equipment crafting/reverse engineering system is a bit off, but can easily be tweaked by including more purchasable recipes and by tweaking their material cost/skill up speed.
My crew have treasure hunting and I'm absolutely in love with. Coming back with cases of cash, loot and companion items for me at the click of the button. Fantastic idea.
Ships
Would be a KOTOR game without them. It's a huge moment when you get your very own ship and robot crafting wench as well as the freedom to roam the galaxy at will, another massive tick in SWTOR's favour, however....
Ship Combat and upgrade
Oh good lord, no. Bad Bioware, that's a very bad Bioware. To have been the first MMO to nearly eradicate traditional MMO level grinding, you then reintroduce it with ship combat. The combat itself is actually quite fun, and makes a refreshing change of pace to the man to man lightsaber swinging. Where it all falls to pieces is in the absolute necessity of upgrades. Without them, anything but the first mission is impossible, so you have to grind that mission out a good 20 times to get some upgrades that allow the other missions to become remotely doable. I appreciate making ship combat difficult, but don't make grinding for upgrades the only way to overcome that difficulty. Terribly disappointing, here's hoping it's fixed pronto.
Lag and technical issues
Has been noticeable, but not awful, and my god I've certainly known worse for MMO's at this stage or development. Nar Shaddaa was a bit of a culprit here, serious clipping and pathing issues; enemies evading or getting knocked out of existence. My companion was getting stuck, lost or randomly killed constantly.
For a story driven MMO, immersion is key, so these issues are more jarring than they perhaps would be in another game. It's something that is sure to be addressed and it certainly isn't so bad as to render the game unplayable.
Warzones and PvP
This is where the lag and frame rate issues we've all been experiencing really hit home. At times it really is unplayable. You engage an opponent, try to keep them pinned and in range as a melee only to have them bounce around the screen or be out of range despite the fact the avatars might as well be dry humping. Other times you'll be engaged by 3 people, attempt to react only to be frozen in place with none of the buttons doing anything and be dead by the time the latency catches up.
Balance wise, most people are lightsaber users, who didn't see that coming? I feel strong, but not too strong. I can defeat my jedi counterparts, and If I can catch a ranged unawares then I'll hammer them down. If I'm caught in the open and they're in cover or my force charge is down, then I'm in trouble. What's good is that there are no quick deaths unless you're engaged by 2-3+ people at once, no one has the power of 3 second kill here, it just doesn't happen. In a 1v1 situation you always have time to react. Ranged players might disagree on the balance issues, I can only speak for my own experience.
CC seems to be the big issue here, no diminishing returns, things like whirlwind that last for ages aren't broken by damage, I person can be held in place by 2-3 people and be unable to do a damn thing but watch their health deplete.
The warzones themselves are on the whole a success, but with one crashing failure. Huttball is atrocious, it might be the lag issues or the fact that most people don't quite understand the mechanics, but nonetheless, it's not a fun game.
The alderaan objective control is a pretty standard affair, but it's well designed and it works, when the lag is calm, it can be a lot of fun. Team work wins the day.
The attack/defend ship invasion is a real winner. Great to see this in an MMO, I'm sure it will be a huge favourite on official release.
Graphics and art
I quite like the art style, wish there was a little more variety in facial types among the various humanoids, everyone looks rather similar, and character creation is pretty bare bones. The graphics themselves are clearly unoptimised, but a bit of polish could see the art really come into its own with a few bells and whistles implemented.
That's all I can come up with for now. Overall I am hugely impressed, despite the many negatives, I see the majority of them as fixable before release. Should these issues be fixed, I can certainly see Bioware receiving my monthly subscription.
