Resource System Feel

[nyoan]

I've been reading lately, and it seems that in most of the posts that draw out the negative side of things with TOR, then tend to bring up something about auto-attack being replaced by 1.1.1.1.1.1.1 spam. I thought I'd bring this up because in my experience in the past beta weekend, I didn't get that feeling at all. I was only able to play three classes up to around 10 or so (trooper, consular, and knight), but I didn't really find any one of them to feel like I had to spam 1.

Trooper: I felt like I could take a measured approach, hitting something off ever cooldown, but I never really felt like I needed to use 1 too much. In fact, I felt like I was accidently defaulting to it at times when I could have used a heavier attack. Why? I liked the animation of the default shot Overall, ammo was interesting because I had to weigh taking a ton of shots and losing my regen factor or taking measured shots with less dps. Was fun to be able to open up at the end of a fight and do massive damage. Reminded me of a death knight in WoW, my favorite tank class.

Consular: With the various cooldowns, I never really felt like I was needing to hit one. At times I was using so many various force abilities it felt novel to actually smack something with my saber, and even then it felt good animation-wise and didn't feel like I had or even was spamming 1. The regen didn't feel as limiting as other systems. I thought I'd hate it since I despise the rogue-style regen in WoW due to feeling limited by what I can do (I just dont' cope with it well), but the regen was fast enough and the GCD long enough that I felt like I only drained the tank if I went trigger happy.

Knight: This was the closest I got to feeling like I was overusing 1. With the knight you feed your focus by using focus-building attacks, and that focus is used on big hits. With the knight for the first three levels or so, until I got force leap, I did get a bit of that feeling, but by the time I got leap it was more like I was strategizing what to hit when so that I could use my big hits as much as possible. I didnt' feel like I was spamming 1 so much as making a tactical decision. Thinking about how many points this or that would make and calculating which mob to use them on, etc, was a blast for me.

What is everyone else's take from the system? Is the "you spam 1 a lot at low levels" critique valid in your eyes? Or is everyone just playing a sith warrior or jedi knight for one level and then quitting? Because that would lead to spamming 1 I suppose. Though, for a comparison, I felt much more spammy as a level 1 warrior in WoW than I did as a knight. How did you like the systems in general? Which ticked your fancy?

[Jamber]

I only spent time on an Imperial Agent the entire time on my weekend beta, got to 20. Now, at the start, getting everything down, you do notice a lack of an auto attack. and I found I was pushing all the wrong buttons, sometimes 1 when I could have easily done a stronger attack. The IA/smuggler will play similarly to BH/Trooper in resource mechanics. The more you use resource abilities, the slower your resource will build.

As an IA, I found myself never running out of my energy unless it was an elite or boss fight. At the start, I would snipe away from behind cover. Snipe is a pretty energy heavy ability too, but things would get 1-2 shot. In fact, I found that the 1 attack to actually not suck in terms of damage. Sure, it wasn't as GOOD as the other stuff, but it was useful when I wanted something to die and not use more energy.

To be honest, I find this no auto attack, something to always press, mechanic exactly how wow is today, it's just that wow has so much resource for everyone, or abilities to push to get more resources, that you really play the same way - You are always pushing something. And, again, to be honest, if you just spam 1 after level 10, you're gonna start dying to stuff really quick.

[Shardik]

personally one of the reasons I wanna play trooper so much is the ammo system. I love the idea of having to weigh on bursting or reserving, versus the energy system in wow (which was my favorite) of using stuff whenever it came up while staying in rotation/priority.