Worth playing now?

[gd8]

Came back a bit in SWTOR to relaunch my old account. Always enjoyable to navigate in this universe. Only thing I find a bit crappy is the general feeling of the graphical engine (combats notably are very clunky compared to fast paced games such as WoW) and the number of spells you have to play with is absolutely gigantic, it is really not fun to play with 10+ different action buttons during a combat :-(

So yes nice to quest but combats are really ruining my experience so far

not sure what you mean by that, most of the top dps specs use about 8 or less buttons in their general rotation which is comparable to WoW. I have roughly the same amount of keybinds on my swtor dps characters as I do on my WoW dps characters.

if I had to guess I'd say you're probably playing a marauder which does have a lot of abilities (a handful of which are not used in the actual rotation) but even though only have about 8 core rotational abilities + 2 filler resource generators

edit: just saw your second post saying you play arsenal, that spec has the fewest rotational abilities of any dps spec in the game.

[lovingbenji]

not sure what you mean by that, most of the top dps specs use about 8 or less buttons in their general rotation which is comparable to WoW. I have roughly the same amount of keybinds on my swtor dps characters as I do on my WoW dps characters.

if I had to guess I'd say you're probably playing a marauder which does have a lot of abilities (a handful of which are not used in the actual rotation) but even though only have about 8 core rotational abilities + 2 filler resource generators

edit: just saw your second post saying you play arsenal, that spec has the fewest rotational abilities of any dps spec in the game.

Thanks a lot to all of you for your answers.

Indeed it took some time for me to figure out that many spells were absolutely garbage at high level (such as fusion missile - unless you use a certain relic - or exploding dart). So at the end there are less spells to play with. In my case it is (putting aside AOE) Tracer Missile, Electronet (yes many guides still say it must be in the classical rotation), priming shot, heatseeker, blazing bolts, rail shot and the pew-pew filler (don't recall the name). Aside from that there are the "offensive CD's" with the supercharged xx to be used sometimes as often as other spells if I understand well.

For that matter I use this guide I found : https://vulkk.com/2020/08/29/swtor-6...de-by-endonae/

So yes less spells than expected but a bit more than my Havoc DH - nothing insurmontable !

[gd8]

Thanks a lot to all of you for your answers.

Indeed it took some time for me to figure out that many spells were absolutely garbage at high level (such as fusion missile - unless you use a certain relic - or exploding dart). So at the end there are less spells to play with. In my case it is (putting aside AOE) Tracer Missile, Electronet (yes many guides still say it must be in the classical rotation), priming shot, heatseeker, blazing bolts, rail shot and the pew-pew filler (don't recall the name). Aside from that there are the "offensive CD's" with the supercharged xx to be used sometimes as often as other spells if I understand well.

For that matter I use this guide I found : https://vulkk.com/2020/08/29/swtor-6...de-by-endonae/

So yes less spells than expected but a bit more than my Havoc DH - nothing insurmontable !

glad you're feeling more comfortable with it now. the guides on vulkk are great and I'd also recommend this guy's guides as well: https://sites.google.com/view/merlyn...ome?authuser=0

he has thorough up to date guides for every spec in the game, so if you ever wanna branch out and try another spec/class I'd recommend starting there. vulkk's site is missing a few specs for the current patch I believe.

[lovingbenji]

glad you're feeling more comfortable with it now. the guides on vulkk are great and I'd also recommend this guy's guides as well: https://sites.google.com/view/merlyn...ome?authuser=0

he has thorough up to date guides for every spec in the game, so if you ever wanna branch out and try another spec/class I'd recommend starting there. vulkk's site is missing a few specs for the current patch I believe.

Thanks !! Very useful guide

[Strawberry]

I picked it up a couple of days ago after playing Guild Wars 2 for a week.
In my opinion yes, it's worth playing.

I think all 4 currently big games have a spot in the MMORPG universe.
Maybe even Black Desert.

World of Warcraft need no explanation.
SW: ToR is basically WoW in SW universe. It has better graphic, better single player and better story. And it's pure sci-fi! The animations are stiff though and it has less content and players.
Guild Wars 2 has the pvp and rather differnt approach to skills. It also doesn't overwhelm you with skills like WoW and SW.
The Elder Scrolls Online has more of an action based combat, different than the above games. Another game with very few skills. Great casual game imo.
Black Desert is even more action but it's a typical Asian game. I enjoyed Lineage 2 back in the day when you could die and drop half your gear, but now that I'm older, I don't have time to just grind. Nor I want to mindlessly grind monsters for hours.

[Cloe]

The first 40 hours would be good. The storytelling is solo like. ^_^

[Fkiolaris]

One issue this game has had for a while for me is that it takes eons to update whenever there is a new patch. I have a pretty descent computer that can install/update just fine and run all other MMOs at the highest settings (WoW, WoW Classic, ESO, GW2, and from when I used to play TSW and FFXIV), but for some reason SWTOR takes sometimes days to completely update, as it is doing now for me with the latest patch. So for someone like me that wanted to give their bounty hunter a spin after seeing the new Mandalorian trailer, this is a non-starter so do keep that in mind in case you want to try it

[shise]

As in leveling? yes, definitely. But leveling just got a bit destroyed.

The good thing is: you get to pick an Xpack, which allows you to deep dive a bit more into a part of wow rather than out-leveling all of them within hours.

The bad thing is: Leveling is way too fast, you even out-level that ONE part (X pack) you pick. Leveling should not take less time that what the average is to clear an Expansion plus BfA. 1, 2 or 3 days of played time, so be it. 8 to 10 hours like it takes now? that is ridiculous. Could have saved themselves the time waste on this "revamp".

As in end game? Well, as this is the pre patch, there is no thing as end game atm, just a count down of maybe month and a half or so for the release But from next week you can farm some epics in preparation.

[Fkiolaris]

Huh, I update in no time at all. Maybe 15-20 minutes tops when it's verifying for awhile.

Also, right now is a good time to play. There is a new ingame event, The Feast of Prosperity, and it encourages fighting world bosses and groups are being put together constantly all day long. A good time to see some of the galaxy you may have skipped before.

It was playing just fine about a month ago when I fired up to check what's new, after seeing that trailer. I tried again 3 days ago and it was doing whatever it was doing since then, so I uninstalled it today and I am re-installing to see what happens. I dread next week when they will have another patch !

[Swnem]

Nice to see they're adding login rewards. Though the rewards we can see are kinda meh, the weekly boxes and the subscriber rewards might be better. Also looking forward to the new flashpoint. Oh, and the emote revamp is nice as well.

It's good to see SWTOR still getting attention from the devs, I'm actually really enjoying it right now in this WoW lull. And if Shadowlands doesn't blow me away I may just bail on WoW for SWTOR permanently.

The game has had guaranteed support for a while. It is slow though. They have pretty much confirmed a new "expansion" for the 10th anniversary, but with corona i'm afraid it will get pushed back.

They are working on improving a few things on the tech side. It's such a fun game and they have been building a base for it that it didnt have with the old game director.

I just wish EA realised it's worth investing in the game again. If it had bigger expacs every 2 years like wow/ff/lotro it would make them so much more money.

[Biomega]

The bad thing is: Leveling is way too fast, you even out-level that ONE part (X pack) you pick.

One thing that I have found can help (especially for new players) is to pretty much ONLY do the class quest line. That will keep your XP in check and allow a smoother progression. You may want to throw in a quest or two on occasion when there's a bit of a dip, but for the most part I found that just sticking to the class story follows the level bracket progression fairly closely.

[Edge-]

One thing that I have found can help (especially for new players) is to pretty much ONLY do the class quest line. That will keep your XP in check and allow a smoother progression. You may want to throw in a quest or two on occasion when there's a bit of a dip, but for the most part I found that just sticking to the class story follows the level bracket progression fairly closely.

If you're sub, you'll stay at the right level with just your class missions. If you're F2P/preferred then the planetary storylines will supplement the missing XP (and maybe the odd flashpoint).

But realistically it doesn't matter too much since you scale to the level of the planet you're on. You're still pretty danged OP if you scale down so it's not gonna be much of a challenge, but I don't think anyone is in the leveling experience for the challenge : P

[LoreFreak]

How is the new story content? Is it true that Revan is back? o_O

[Nalam the Venom]

How is the new story content? Is it true that Revan is back? o_O

It's probably better if you ask here https://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/

MMO-champ is pretty dead when it comes to swtor stuff

[quras]

So I've decided to let my sub lapse and go back to Preferred soon, just because I don't particularly like paying a monthly subscription for any game, and I'm wondering what unlocks folk would recommend buying before then? I've got about 250 million to spend and I'm not sure what unlocks I've already gotten so list everything you think makes the preferred experience as tolerable as possible. The only thing I'll really miss is the lack of a cap on credits but I'm sure I can live with it as I've gotten most every armor or mount I want off the GTN already.

The big one would be ACCOUNT wide artifact authorization. You could buy it for a single character but most probably want it account wide so you can use any gear you get on any toon. Even new ones you might make.

That's probably the biggest one to unlock for a preferred.

Others I like having are these but they are all not limited to just preferred status. I also try to unlock account wide when I could:
Rocket boost
A few extra Character slots when preferred
Hide head slot
Unify colors
GTN slots
Additional quickbars if you think you need them
Additonal cargo bays - if you don't already have them
Legacy stronghold storage
Crew skill slot
Guild bank
Inventory slots
Outfit designer

[quras]

Thanks quras! The only thing out of that that I'm sure I don't have already is the 3rd crew skill slot and some GTN slots. I wish there were some way to see which unlocks I already have applied while I'm still subbed lol. I might buy the few things you mention that I'm not sure about just in case I suppose. At worst, I can always try to resell them if I don't need them.

Completely agree with you on the "wanting to know what unlocks I have and don't have" I wouldn't mind a list in the game settings that showed what I have applied and what I haven't.

[Edge-]

Completely agree with you on the "wanting to know what unlocks I have and don't have" I wouldn't mind a list in the game settings that showed what I have applied and what I haven't.

It'd be nicer if those long-ago discussed improvements to the business model ever happened. I remember interviews years ago, I think leading into KotFE, where they talked at length about how they heard and knew that the F2P model wasn't great and that they were looking to reduce some of the restrictions.

Don't think that ever happened. Did they ever even drop the warzone limit that IIRC was announced years and years and years ago?

[quras]

It'd be nicer if those long-ago discussed improvements to the business model ever happened. I remember interviews years ago, I think leading into KotFE, where they talked at length about how they heard and knew that the F2P model wasn't great and that they were looking to reduce some of the restrictions.

Don't think that ever happened. Did they ever even drop the warzone limit that IIRC was announced years and years and years ago?

Sadly no. it's all the same as it was. The only way to get around the limit is to join them with a subscriber. Then the preferred is exempt from the cap. I think the warzone passes were removed around 2017 and talked about returning but of course never did.

I've found over the years and years I've played, the SWTOR crew is a lot of talk and a lot less action. I guess that can be applied to a lot of game companies these day though.
What I don't understand through is, if it was a money thing, would they not at least make some money off preferred who just wanted to play extra warzones and nothing else? Some money better than no money?

[Edge-]

I've found over the years and years I've played, the SWTOR crew is a lot of talk and a lot less action. I guess that can be applied to a lot of game companies these day though.
What I don't understand through is, if it was a money thing, would they not at least make some money off preferred who just wanted to play extra warzones and nothing else? Some money better than no money?

Yeah. The latest producer at least seems less interested in talking and more interested in working, compared to the previous dudes (who did those interviews). I forget his name, but by all accounts the game seems to be doing pretty well after a bit of a rocky transition?

And at this point, I imagine the business model, and any potential changes, are well in their rear view mirror. SWTOR has always had a poor F2P model IMO (free stories, great! but...basically sub or GTFO beyond that), and it doesn't look like that'll change any time.

[Fkiolaris]

Don't think that ever happened. Did they ever even drop the warzone limit that IIRC was announced years and years and years ago?

On that front, it's one step forward and two steps back. So they increased the cap to 10 per week, but now only wins count for the daily/weekly quest. Which means you can easily blow all your WZs in a week and not be done with the weekly (and I guess if you are really unlucky, even with the daily).