What happened in the last 3 1/2 years?

[Hombold]

Edit to provide a VERY short version of this:

Story is kinda interesting, but also has problems due to technical limitations

Focus on being The One is just wrong for an MMO

PVP is terrible - combat mechanics require massive improvements and the engine needs heavy optimization

Space Combat PVP is not good - controls feel awkward

Flashpoints and Dungeons are no fun with group finder if you even find a group at all

F2P restrictions suck compared to other games - don't lock basic features behind a pay wall

 

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Greetings,

 

I have to warn you. This might be a bit longer as i want to describe my experience of the game after so much time. So don't let the wall of text crit you...

 

And if you want to skip most of it, feel free to go to the last chapter.

 

Introduction - A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

I originally bought the Star Wars The Old Republic at release but cancelled my sub after about 5 or 6 months because I got extremely bored with the game. It had huge issues on a technical as well as the MMO level. The stories were fine, but after I was done with them I felt like TOR had little to offer. The PVP felt terrible. Hunting for equip in the Ops didn't feel very rewarding and the crafting wasn't that great to begin with.

 

So after 3 1/2 years partially because of Star Wars Episode 7 I thought "Hey let's give it another go and see what changed". This decision was made easier because it's F2P now...sort of...

 

Episode 1: The Phantom Agent

So yeah, I started a new character on on one of the decently populated servers and picked something i didn't play before story wise (Imperial Agent). OK, so I started the game and I got the first level up before even taking on the first mission.....wait what? Yeah i went to my message box and had various messages in there related to Special Edition and other things with some items and titles inside. Apparently the titles gave me enough XP to get to level 2. That seemed a bit odd, but okay. The odd feeling was then replaced by anger because the titles I get i can't display as a non sub. Why get something i can't use? So this is first feature locked behind the sub wall. It's not to bad i thought because it's just a title and at least it doesn't affect the gameplay....(some of you might laugh at this point).

 

So after doing some missions i was surprised how quickly I got XP. I was level 8 before even leaving the main settlement as a F2P which made me scratch my head. Why do I get so much XP? I know that there was a Christmas boost, but still this is excessive. I always thought the level process was fine with the original game because it had you experience planetary story missions, class story missions and some side missions for money and item rewards. Now it feels like "here, take your XP and go to the next planet. You don't need all the items". Doesn't feel right to me. At that point i decided to leave the side missions alone and focus only on the main story.

 

After a few more levels I got more and more spells and they didn't fit on my quick bar anymore. So i wanted to activate more quick access bars through the interface settings.......WHERE ARE THE QUICK ACCESS BARS? I couldn't find the damn activation settings for the quick access bars. After literally checking every possible setting I finally found them and get angry again. You have to pay for more quick access bars? SERIOUSLY? It is a basic interface element and has to be available to every player. This is typical EA bull****. It's not like you provide something nice for subscribers. No, you're making it a pain to play for non subs....

 

Well i paid the cartel coins (I had 4000 at the beginning) to get additional bars and so I could keep playing normally. By now I was level 15 and after doing the first flashpoint solo I thought "Hey let's try a group flash point" (or tactical as they're called now). Went through the FP pretty well and got a purple item at the end....WHICH I CAN'T USE AS F2P.......REALLY? There is a limitation what equipment I can use? Man, this deal is getting worse all the time...

 

At this point I've had it and finally subbed for 1 month so I could fully use the features of the game which apparently also includes all expansion packs. i wanted to see what else the game had to offer and paid at least for that 1 month.

 

Episode 2: After the Sub

The leveling now continued at an even faster pace. And I was quickly over level 30, 40 and 50. Leveling the crafting at that point was also pretty terrible, even with the obviously increased XP you get there as well. I still like the class main story line and of course do it properly, but due to the XP I'm also ignoring the planet story quests.

 

I have given the standard PVP as well as the new air combat PVP a try. The battleground PVP is just as terrible as it was at the release of the game. The combat feels weird and unresponsive. The game still has huge problems on a technical level. Why wasn't this optimized over last 3 1/2 years? Is the engine really that broken that it is impossible to fix? The air combat as well doesn't feel that great. The controls are clunky and the movement feels weird and not what I would expect. In short I don't like it even though I love SciFi flight simulation action games like Freelancer and Freespace. And yeah i know about Star Citizen and also played around with the Alfa/Beta a bit. In any way the system in TOR could be much better.

 

I also tried the old rail shooter elements and plays just like it did at release - in short - not very exciting.

 

So after that excursion I continued through the class story missions, leveled the crafting and reached Level 65 long before even touching any new planets. I saw the level restrictions that were put in place on the various planets. Some might like that, personally I didn't. even with the lower level the enemies are no challenge at and the only thing it causes is that i occasionally get dismounted and have to fight some stuff which is annoying.

 

Oh yeah btw. I think the difficulty of the game has become ridiculously low. Taking away the challenge also takes away the fun. There is no balance in the force.

 

Episode 3: Rise of the Hutts

I completed the main class story and then checked the various new missions that popped up in my ship. I wanted to do it in a proper order to see the story in the right way without spoiling parts of it. So of course I started with Rise of the Hutts. So it was pretty much one planet with a number of missions that were okay in my opinion. I enjoyed them but it was also rather short. After a few hours I was done with everything on that planet (can't remember the name right now). I completed the dailies there once and decided it wasn't interesting enough to get back.

 

There was some additional missions that popped up about scanning and finding sources of evil, but to be honest I didn't like those. So I didn't even bother to complete them. It felt a little bit like Archeology in WoW, but I didn't like that profession in WoW neither and I don't remember anyone really praising that feature.

 

Episode 4: Revan

The rise of the hutts had been stopped but Revan was out there trying to raise the Emperor. Alrighty then, let's go and hunt Revan. There was quite a few Flashpoints related to this story line and I did all of them solo. Wasn't this supposed to be an MMO? So far I barely had any contact with other players. From time to time a saw a few of them, but It doesn't really feel like I am part of a community, more like playing a Solo RPG. That problem existed with older content as well, but wasn't as abvious there. There were group quests and you actually had to find 2-3 other players to do the 4+ heroic missions. From what I've seen all heroics have pretty much been reduced to 2+ heroics and every mission I attempted solo so far was no problem. So why should I work together with others?

 

During the Revan story missions i also noticed a trend towards me as a player being the one and only who can stop the crisis. Even though it was a trend here, there was still some things that referred to group content (storming the temple with group - Operation). Nonetheless I picked the solo route. The reason for this is that I wanted to finish the story line and I had some bad experiences with groups up to this point.

 

After turning 65 and getting myself some 208 ilvl gear from a vendor by using data crystals i saved up to now, I also wanted to see how Ops would turn out. And oh my god, was this horrible. First of all it's pretty much impossible to find groups through the group finder tool. I managed to find groups for three ops and all of them turned out horrible. It pretty much always ended after the first Boss was down and there was one wipe at the second boss. The funny thing is, that apparently no one knows tactics neither. So everybody apparently expects to easily run through the story modes like you would in LFR difficulty of WoW and people leave immediately after 1 or 2 wipes. Don't even get me started on people pulling without the group being together. The long waiting time and the terrible experiences i had pretty much pushed me away from the ops altogether.

 

So i returned to missions on Rishi and the other planet (Yavin-4?). I completed the flashpoints and story solo and it was pretty good overall except for the primary focus on my character rather than the world in general. But they won't continue this road, won't they?

 

episode 5: Rise of The One

So now it's time for the latest entry which is Rise of the Fallen Empire. The opening sequence looked promising at first. We got a huge war going on. Twins fighting for the leader of this new empire laying down the spoils of war and then one of them attacking the old guy and as a follow up killing his brother. Why kill of one potential bad guy right away? Makes no sense to me and doesn't touch me emotionally because I don't know anything about him.

 

Afterwards we're thrown into more video sequences and small fights. And one thing that feels odd to me right away is that the dialogue sequences are much longer. It feels more like a movie with minimal input from me than a fully fledged game. If I want to see something like that I usually play Telltale games. I expect other things from an MMO.

 

So now we see more things happen and the next potential boss simply being killed off during a video sequence (or is he?). We're now down to one big bad guy.....and apparently a bad girl that wasn't shown before. Who is she? TOR throws lots of visuals into my face but without much explanation. The introduction to this new storyline was not handled well in my opinion.

 

Anyway more stuff happens, there visions and my character is apparently slowly dying in carbon freeze because someone pushed the wrong buttons.....noobs....

 

The old guy is apparently the emperor and now lives inside my characters and gives me more power....ohhh really? I'm turning into Neo now? So apparently we now have thousands of players running around in the world carrying the spirit of the sith emperor inside them.....what a great idea...whooopdidoo

 

I get a big ship, gather more allies (man I love Lana Beniko as a character) and turn more and more into Jesus or Space Hitler. Several hours in I get to fight the new Emperor and it just feels disappointing due to the low difficulty. Even the Revan fight was more interesting, because he at least was a champion and had some interesting abilities. This new dude is just boring.

 

Well after the letdown final fight of the current story line I'm still missing my best leveled companion (which apparently returns in the next chapter based on the picture I saw) and I'm supposed to gather resources and allies because I'm the only hope the galaxy has.....except maybe the other thousand Space Jesus/Hitlers running around.

 

Episode 6: Return of the Dailies

So the story is finished and I'm supposed to do dailies now. Do I need other players? Doesn't feel like a I do. I mean, I'm supposed to be the one. I don't want to share the spotlight

 

I could go doing star fortress missions or gather more companions, but I've taken a look at those and I'm not really feeling very motivated. Some of the missions I've seen are also terribly designed and lack options on how to complete them.

 

That companion mission on Ilum for example was absolutely terrible. Going three times from corner to corner on the Map is not my idea of having a good time. The same goes for "participating" in up to 20 PVP non ranked matches. There's probably more related to flight PVE and PVP, but you've seen my thoughts on this already.

 

Everything feels like meaningless filler right now and pretty much is done solo. Feels a bit like in the Batman Arkham games in which I finished the main campaign and could do the side missions now. I might do it at some point, but probably wont.

 

Episode 7: The Final Thoughts Awaken

So here we are, I've played through most of the content that has been implemented over the last 3 1/2 years and I'm honestly disappointed and confused. Why turn TOR into more of a single player Action-RPG or rather interactive movie with RPG elements? Why not focus the available resources on improving the game on a technical level and really going for more Multiplayer elements? Why not improving the combat to make it feel better and more responsive?

 

Why am I supposed to be The One in an MMO? This was a terrible idea in Age of Conan and it is a terrible idea here. If you don't know hat I'm talking about watch this review (at about 2:30 the important part is metioned):

 

MMOs can be story driven and the old class story lines felt ok. I always felt there were other smugglers or other sith probably doing other things. Now it feels like without me nothing can be done in the universe. This can be good in SP games (you are the hero), but in MMOs it completely destroys the immersion.

 

In addition the heavy focus on story is also misplaced in this game as there are to many technical restrictions. You can't go all out in storytelling. There are lots of visual restrictions. Stories like Knights of the Fallen Empire I would've love to see as a fully fledged separate game with a better engine. Imagine the Battlefront visuals with a great immersive story.

 

The F2P restrictions are terrible and are just there to pretty much force you into subscribing. The Cartel Coin system only seems to be there to get even more money from the players. Oh and the shop interface itself is also terrible.

 

So my final thoughts - the game had potential at release but the devs focused on the wrong things in my opinion. From what I've seen and heard the game is heavily bleeding subs and I'm not even sure if you'll see the end of the Knights of the Fallen Empire storyline. If it will be finished it'll probably be cut short anyway.

 

To bad...

Edited January 6, 2016 by Hombold

[CrazyCT]

^ TL: DR

 

I'll wait on the heavily edited TV version.

Edited January 5, 2016 by CrazyCT

[Hombold]

^ TL: DR

 

I'll wait on the heavily edited TV version.

 

But that might replace cool practical effects with CGI. Do you really want that? DO YOU?

[Katkon]

I'll be completely honest and say that I'm baffled by the sense of entitlement that comes with F2P. The game is made by a for-profit organization, so it should be expected - in my mind - that F2P comes with some fairly major limitations. And frankly, the fact that you subbed - proves that it worked!

 

Gaming software is one of the few products that often has a F2P version available. Imagine if F2P applied to other products/services to put into perspective how generous F2P actually is....

 

1. A new car - it's free, but you can't choose the color or specify whether you want leather or cloth interior. Outrageous, I hear the F2P crowd shout!

 

2. An airline ticket - it's free, but you can't carry on bags or choose what precise hour to fly. Outrageous!

 

3. A hotel room - it's free, but you can't choose where the room is located or whether it comes with 2 queen beds or a king. You might be near an elevator or ice machine. Outrageous!

 

4. A plumbing repair job for your house - it's free, but the plumber gives you an 8 hour arrival window, which requires you to wait at home all day. Outrageous!

 

5. A meal in a restaurant of your choosing - it's free, but you can only choose from a limited number of dates and odd times. Outrageous!

 

I could go on. F2P is a privilege, not an entitlement. It's meant to be more restrictive and harder to play. If everyone played F2P the game would die instantly. EA/BW are not charities

[Divona]

After turning 65 and getting myself some 208 ilvl gear from a vendor by using data crystals i saved up to now, I also wanted to see how Ops would turn out. And oh my god, was this horrible. First of all it's pretty much impossible to find groups through the group finder tool. I managed to find groups for three ops and all of them turned out horrible. It pretty much always ended after the first Boss was down and there was one wipe at the second boss. The funny thing is, that apparently no one knows tactics neither. So everybody apparently expects to easily run through the story modes like you would in LFR difficulty of WoW and people leave immediately after 1 or 2 wipes. Don't even get me started on people pulling without the group being together. The long waiting time and the terrible experiences i had pretty much pushed me away from the ops altogether.

 

Welcome to the end game where a lot veterans have left game or planning that soon since all that have been done already thousand times. This is a future for this game that is story based RPG but game is online and with monthly payment. The only option for you is to join guild who has done endgame content already and explains tactics. A lot new players or returning players got no clue what to do in opses or even HM FP's so they just queue and hope for best

In reality it usually doesnt work if someone does not carry them or explain all and being patient. Even some story mode opses cant be done without knowing what to do exactly. From top of my head i know operator in terror from beyond is one of them that is pugs curse

And even new players are not patient to try more after few wipes.

 

To reply why game has changed towards story based single player action RPG you have to read this http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8730324&postcount=57

Edited January 5, 2016 by Divona

[ImmortalLowlife]

^ TL: DR

 

I'll wait on the heavily edited TV version.

 

 

The TL: DR version is basically "I don't like the f2p model, PvP sucks, game is to easy, I don't like the focus on single player story because this is an mmo...."

 

Like we haven't heard this before.....

Edited January 5, 2016 by ImmortalLowlife

[Hombold]

I'll be completely honest and say that I'm baffled by the sense of entitlement that comes with F2P. The game is made by a for-profit organization, so it should be expected - in my mind - that F2P comes with some fairly major limitations. And frankly, the fact that you subbed - proves that it worked!

 

Well I subbed because I planned to see the full story anyway and I thought that subbing was easier than dealing with the terrible cartel coin store. And I don't want to be entitled. In my opinion a F2P game should still give you game experience and not lock basic functionality away that gives other players a game play advantage over you.

 

1. A new car - it's free, but you can't choose the color or specify whether you want leather or cloth interior. Outrageous, I hear the F2P crowd shout!

 

Terrible example. I mentioned that I could overlook the titles as they're just a visual feature and not important. The quick access bars however are essential for gameplay.

 

So what would say if you go a free car, but you can't see how fast you drive. That would a slight problem as you might be stopped for speeding. If you have other cars in range it might work, because you can use their speed as orientation. The driving is still not as good as it would be with proper information.

 

2. An airline ticket - it's free, but you can't carry on bags or choose what precise hour to fly. Outrageous!

 

Well if i can't choose the hour of departure that is not a problem, but if the airline won't tell the hour of departure or were the plane will fly to, this would be a huge problem. Hey here you have a ticket, but we won't tell when the flight goes or were to.

 

In this case I would tell the Airline F*** YOU as well

 

3. A hotel room - it's free, but you can't choose where the room is located or whether it comes with 2 queen beds or a king. You might be near an elevator or ice machine. Outrageous!

 

Still not a problem, but if the room is missing a door and your stuff might get stolen as soon as you leave the room it's a whole different story.

 

4. A plumbing repair job for your house - it's free, but the plumber gives you an 8 hour arrival window, which requires you to wait at home all day. Outrageous!

 

I usually get these kind arrival windows even when paying. A while ago a delivery company called me and said they would arrive between 8am and 4pm. I asked them if it was possible to narrow it down a bit and they said NO!

 

Btw. a more appropriate comparison to TOR would be that you get a free delivery but it might arrive broken or not at all.

 

5. A meal in a restaurant of your choosing - it's free, but you can only choose from a limited number of dates and odd times. Outrageous!

 

Again terrible comparison. A free meal just on certain dates or odd times is nothing to complain about. If I only get food however that is already spoiled than I would be angry as well.

 

I could go on. F2P is a privilege, not an entitlement. It's meant to be more restrictive and harder to play. If everyone played F2P the game would die instantly. EA/BW are not charities

 

F2P is not a privilege it's a business model. You get access to the software and service to a certain degree. However to get everything you have to pay. Some games do it well, EA games usually do not and SW TOR is a prime example in my opinion on how not to do it. In addition I'm not really a pure F2P player. I bought the damn game at full price as special edition and paid several months of subscription in the beginning and that doesn't even allow me to access the full interface without investing cartel coins or subbing?

 

I was at least happy that I had a number of cartel coins available to unlock the UI elements.

[Hombold]

Welcome to the end game where a lot veterans have left game or planning that soon since all that have been done already thousand times. This is a future for this game that is story based RPG but game is online and with monthly payment. The only option for you is to join guild who has done endgame content already and explains tactics. A lot new players or returning players got no clue what to do in opses or even HM FP's so they just queue and hope for best

In reality it usually doesnt work if someone does not carry them or explain all and being patient. Even some story mode opses cant be done without knowing what to do exactly. From top of my head i know operator in terror from beyond is one of them that is pugs curse

And even new players are not patient to try more after few wipes.

 

To reply why game has changed towards story based single player action RPG you have to read this http://www.swtor.com/community/showpost.php?p=8730324&postcount=57

 

Ok, I think it will probably happen that way as well. 2018 might be show the end of this game. It's sad because it had lot's of potential, but yeah it went all to waste.

 

Btw. I pretty much noticed that I use the phrase "pretty much" to often

[DarthSpuds]

I'll be completely honest and say that I'm baffled by the sense of entitlement that comes with F2P. The game is made by a for-profit organization, so it should be expected - in my mind - that F2P comes with some fairly major limitations. And frankly, the fact that you subbed - proves that it worked!

 

OK, let's nail this BS on the head once and for all (and before I get accused of being "entitled" I'm a Sub, have been so for at least 80% of the game's lifespan).

 

As a F2P Player the game MUST BE PLAYABLE; It isn't, by any stretch of the imagination, playable if you need to BUY Skill Bars to put key class skills on.

 

There should be a "bonus" to be a Sub, and having enough skill bars to use your skills ISN'T a bonus - its an essential baseline feature of the game.

 

As to your comment that "it works because you subbed"; it only works because the game is essentially unplayable as a genuine F2P Player - in fact I routinely advise friends from other games just not to bother with SWTOR even for a trial period as F2P because the game is appallingly limited.

 

For the few months a year I go F2P the game is only playable because I have unlocked all the crap that BW choose to lock away from players.

 

Things that shouldn't be locked for F2P players:

1) Skill Bars

2) Currency Cap - they earned it in game, let them use it as they see fit.

3) Gear Lockouts - they earned the gear in-game, let them use it.

4) Hide Head Slot/

5) Unify Colours.

 

These are BASELINE elements of any game that wants to claim to be an AAA title. There is no excuse EVER for making even F2P player pay to unlock them.

 

I've played many, many MMORPGs, both sub only and Premium / F2P - SWTOR has the VERY WORST F2P model of any game I have ever played (heck its even worse than Neverwinter).

 

All The Best

[gabigool]

snip

 

I think you pretty much nailed most of it. It's a reasonable objective commentary on what the game feels like.

 

The only thing I would say is that the Operations content is actually pretty fun at the higher difficulty levels and worth exploring. It's obviously inaccessible at the PuG level but having invested some time into the game already, it might be worth joining an established guild and playing through the HM versions of EC/TFB/SV/DF/DP/Rav/ToS.

 

Why the developers have gone out of their way to lower the skill-cap of the game to the point where the average new player has practically no chance to experience this content... is sad.

 

Unfortunately, the current meta really takes away any real motivation to interact/group which kills the endgame experience and leaves newer players with the options of:

 

- Grinding Star Fortresses for dubious return

- Trying to learn grouping protocol in poorly implemented tacticals

- PuG-ing operations with no rhyme/reason to tuning and zero effective preparation.

 

It's a shame. HM Operations in this game are quite good but the chasm in skill level required for them - vs. the rest of the game - is crippling to this community.

[Talosred]

And thus describes most mmos at this age mark lately.

[CrazyCT]

Thanks for the TL: DR's - although, I have to point out that the F2P model seen here is employed in thousands of industries across the globe - It's like an introductory offer on a credit card, or those book-a-month clubs - the first 1 or 2 cost just 99p, then it goes up to the full price of £15 per month. The f2p model is specifically designed to give you a taster of what's on offer, and rope you in. The restrictions are pretty restricting, for want of a better word, because they want you to spend money, either by subbing or by buying CC and getting the unlock from the Cartel Market.

 

Yet again, I feel the need to remind people that this ISN'T a game, it's a business.

[gabigool]

Thanks for the TL: DR's - although, I have to point out that the F2P model seen here is employed in thousands of industries across the globe - It's like an introductory offer on a credit card, or those book-a-month clubs - the first 1 or 2 cost just 99p, then it goes up to the full price of £15 per month. The f2p model is specifically designed to give you a taster of what's on offer, and rope you in. The restrictions are pretty restricting, for want of a better word, because they want you to spend money, either by subbing or by buying CC and getting the unlock from the Cartel Market.

 

Yet again, I feel the need to remind people that this ISN'T a game, it's a business.

 

Thousands of industries can do whatever they like.

 

In this industry, the threshold of basic gameplay functionality locked behind a paywall is atypical.

[CrazyCT]

Did you read the last line?

[Talosred]

Though this thread made me think about something why is it always Space Hitler and not Space Stalin

 

Given the dark side path thus far seems more like an anti hero in the fallen empire so far, and that fits the other guy better.

[Hombold]

Why the developers have gone out of their way to lower the skill-cap of the game to the point where the average new player has practically no chance to experience this content... is sad.

 

The difference in difficulty is noticeable but shouldn't be a problem if people worked together.

 

Due to the lack of group activity during leveling you don't really get to know other players. I remember in the beginning of WoW you played together with people and communities grew naturally. Today it always feels like I'm applying for a job. And at the moment I wouldn't join a guild as it's unlikely that I'll continue playing this game.

 

If I'd join and then leave after 2 weeks it feel like taking advantage of them.

 

Though this thread made me think about something why is it always Space Hitler and not Space Stalin

 

Given the dark side path thus far seems more like an anti hero in the fallen empire so far, and that fits the other guy better.

 

Personally I don't see that much of a difference between Hitler and Stalin. Both were ruthless dictators sending others to their deaths for their own personal gains. I used Hitler, because people easily recognize him as being evil. And the dark side path imho is just being an a-hole killing everything that doesn't provide me with any "profit"

Edited January 5, 2016 by Hombold

[Nothing_Shines]

It's Space Hitler because Hitler was a supremely evil bastard who died in WWII and his empire died with him. If Stalin had been the one to die and the Soviets hadn't had an additional 45 years to propagandize the tens of millions Stalin killed because their empire collapsed, while the Nazis were still around and in power, Space Stalin would be the go to big bad reference. I mean Stalin killed more people during his reign than Hitler did, but most of his victims were citizens of the USSR, so most people outside the region don't really think about it. Edited January 5, 2016 by Nothing_Shines

[Renata_Roselli]

Greetings,

 

I have to warn you. This might be a bit longer as i want to describe my experience of the game after so much time. So don't let the wall of text crit you...

 

And if you want to skip most of it, feel free to go to the last chapter.

 

Introduction - A long time ago in a galaxy far far away

I originally bought the Star Wars The Old Republic at release but cancelled my sub after about 5 or 6 months because I got extremely bored with the game. It had huge issues on a technical as well as the MMO level. The stories were fine, but after I was done with them I felt like TOR had little to offer. The PVP felt terrible. Hunting for equip in the Ops didn't feel very rewarding and the crafting wasn't that great to begin with.

 

So after 3 1/2 years partially because of Star Wars Episode 7 I thought "Hey let's give it another go and see what changed". This decision was made easier because it's F2P now...sort of...

 

Episode 1: The Phantom Agent

So yeah, I started a new character on on one of the decently populated servers and picked something i didn't play before story wise (Imperial Agent). OK, so I started the game and I got the first level up before even taking on the first mission.....wait what? Yeah i went to my message box and had various messages in there related to Special Edition and other things with some items and titles inside. Apparently the titles gave me enough XP to get to level 2. That seemed a bit odd, but okay. The odd feeling was then replaced by anger because the titles I get i can't display as a non sub. Why get something i can't use? So this is first feature locked behind the sub wall. It's not to bad i thought because it's just a title and at least it doesn't affect the gameplay....(some of you might laugh at this point).

 

So after doing some missions i was surprised how quickly I got XP. I was level 8 before even leaving the main settlement as a F2P which made me scratch my head. Why do I get so much XP? I know that there was a Christmas boost, but still this is excessive. I always thought the level process was fine with the original game because it had you experience planetary story missions, class story missions and some side missions for money and item rewards. Now it feels like "here, take your XP and go to the next planet. You don't need all the items". Doesn't feel right to me. At that point i decided to leave the side missions alone and focus only on the main story.

 

After a few more levels I got more and more spells and they didn't fit on my quick bar anymore. So i wanted to activate more quick access bars through the interface settings.......WHERE ARE THE QUICK ACCESS BARS? I couldn't find the damn activation settings for the quick access bars. After literally checking every possible setting I finally found them and get angry again. You have to pay for more quick access bars? SERIOUSLY? It is a basic interface element and has to be available to every player. This is typical EA bull****. It's not like you provide something nice for subscribers. No, you're making it a pain to play for non subs....

 

Well i paid the cartel coins (I had 4000 at the beginning) to get additional bars and so I could keep playing normally. By now I was level 15 and after doing the first flashpoint solo I thought "Hey let's try a group flash point" (or tactical as they're called now). Went through the FP pretty well and got a purple item at the end....WHICH I CAN'T USE AS F2P.......REALLY? There is a limitation what equipment I can use? Man, this deal is getting worse all the time...

 

At this point I've had it and finally subbed for 1 month so I could fully use the features of the game which apparently also includes all expansion packs. i wanted to see what else the game had to offer and paid at least for that 1 month.

 

Episode 2: After the Sub

The leveling now continued at an even faster pace. And I was quickly over level 30, 40 and 50. Leveling the crafting at that point was also pretty terrible, even with the obviously increased XP you get there as well. I still like the class main story line and of course do it properly, but due to the XP I'm also ignoring the planet story quests.

 

I have given the standard PVP as well as the new air combat PVP a try. The battleground PVP is just as terrible as it was at the release of the game. The combat feels weird and unresponsive. The game still has huge problems on a technical level. Why wasn't this optimized over last 3 1/2 years? Is the engine really that broken that it is impossible to fix? The air combat as well doesn't feel that great. The controls are clunky and the movement feels weird and not what I would expect. In short I don't like it even though I love SciFi flight simulation action games like Freelancer and Freespace. And yeah i know about Star Citizen and also played around with the Alfa/Beta a bit. In any way the system in TOR could be much better.

 

I also tried the old rail shooter elements and plays just like it did at release - in short - not very exciting.

 

So after that excursion I continued through the class story missions, leveled the crafting and reached Level 65 long before even touching any new planets. I saw the level restrictions that were put in place on the various planets. Some might like that, personally I didn't. even with the lower level the enemies are no challenge at and the only thing it causes is that i occasionally get dismounted and have to fight some stuff which is annoying.

 

Oh yeah btw. I think the difficulty of the game has become ridiculously low. Taking away the challenge also takes away the fun. There is no balance in the force.

 

Episode 3: Rise of the Hutts

I completed the main class story and then checked the various new missions that popped up in my ship. I wanted to do it in a proper order to see the story in the right way without spoiling parts of it. So of course I started with Rise of the Hutts. So it was pretty much one planet with a number of missions that were okay in my opinion. I enjoyed them but it was also rather short. After a few hours I was done with everything on that planet (can't remember the name right now). I completed the dailies there once and decided it wasn't interesting enough to get back.

 

There was some additional missions that popped up about scanning and finding sources of evil, but to be honest I didn't like those. So I didn't even bother to complete them. It felt a little bit like Archeology in WoW, but I didn't like that profession in WoW neither and I don't remember anyone really praising that feature.

 

Episode 4: Revan

The rise of the hutts had been stopped but Revan was out there trying to raise the Emperor. Alrighty then, let's go and hunt Revan. There was quite a few Flashpoints related to this story line and I did all of them solo. Wasn't this supposed to be an MMO? So far I barely had any contact with other players. From time to time a saw a few of them, but It doesn't really feel like I am part of a community, more like playing a Solo RPG. That problem existed with older content as well, but wasn't as abvious there. There were group quests and you actually had to find 2-3 other players to do the 4+ heroic missions. From what I've seen all heroics have pretty much been reduced to 2+ heroics and every mission I attempted solo so far was no problem. So why should I work together with others?

 

During the Revan story missions i also noticed a trend towards me as a player being the one and only who can stop the crisis. Even though it was a trend here, there was still some things that referred to group content (storming the temple with group - Operation). Nonetheless I picked the solo route. The reason for this is that I wanted to finish the story line and I had some bad experiences with groups up to this point.

 

After turning 65 and getting myself some 208 ilvl gear from a vendor by using data crystals i saved up to now, I also wanted to see how Ops would turn out. And oh my god, was this horrible. First of all it's pretty much impossible to find groups through the group finder tool. I managed to find groups for three ops and all of them turned out horrible. It pretty much always ended after the first Boss was down and there was one wipe at the second boss. The funny thing is, that apparently no one knows tactics neither. So everybody apparently expects to easily run through the story modes like you would in LFR difficulty of WoW and people leave immediately after 1 or 2 wipes. Don't even get me started on people pulling without the group being together. The long waiting time and the terrible experiences i had pretty much pushed me away from the ops altogether.

 

So i returned to missions on Rishi and the other planet (Yavin-4?). I completed the flashpoints and story solo and it was pretty good overall except for the primary focus on my character rather than the world in general. But they won't continue this road, won't they?

 

episode 5: Rise of The One

So now it's time for the latest entry which is Rise of the Fallen Empire. The opening sequence looked promising at first. We got a huge war going on. Twins fighting for the leader of this new empire laying down the spoils of war and then one of them attacking the old guy and as a follow up killing his brother. Why kill of one potential bad guy right away? Makes no sense to me and doesn't touch me emotionally because I don't know anything about him.

 

Afterwards we're thrown into more video sequences and small fights. And one thing that feels odd to me right away is that the dialogue sequences are much longer. It feels more like a movie with minimal input from me than a fully fledged game. If I want to see something like that I usually play Telltale games. I expect other things from an MMO.

 

So now we see more things happen and the next potential boss simply being killed off during a video sequence (or is he?). We're now down to one big bad guy.....and apparently a bad girl that wasn't shown before. Who is she? TOR throws lots of visuals into my face but without much explanation. The introduction to this new storyline was not handled well in my opinion.

 

Anyway more stuff happens, there visions and my character is apparently slowly dying in carbon freeze because someone pushed the wrong buttons.....noobs....

 

The old guy is apparently the emperor and now lives inside my characters and gives me more power....ohhh really? I'm turning into Neo now? So apparently we now have thousands of players running around in the world carrying the spirit of the sith emperor inside them.....what a great idea...whooopdidoo

 

I get a big ship, gather more allies (man I love Lana Beniko as a character) and turn more and more into Jesus or Space Hitler. Several hours in I get to fight the new Emperor and it just feels disappointing due to the low difficulty. Even the Revan fight was more interesting, because he at least was a champion and had some interesting abilities. This new dude is just boring.

 

Well after the letdown final fight of the current story line I'm still missing my best leveled companion (which apparently returns in the next chapter based on the picture I saw) and I'm supposed to gather resources and allies because I'm the only hope the galaxy has.....except maybe the other thousand Space Jesus/Hitlers running around.

 

Episode 6: Return of the Dailies

So the story is finished and I'm supposed to do dailies now. Do I need other players? Doesn't feel like a I do. I mean, I'm supposed to be the one. I don't want to share the spotlight

 

I could go doing star fortress missions or gather more companions, but I've taken a look at those and I'm not really feeling very motivated. Some of the missions I've seen are also terribly designed and lack options on how to complete them.

 

That companion mission on Ilum for example was absolutely terrible. Going three times from corner to corner on the Map is not my idea of having a good time. The same goes for "participating" in up to 20 PVP non ranked matches. There's probably more related to flight PVE and PVP, but you've seen my thoughts on this already.

 

Everything feels like meaningless filler right now and pretty much is done solo. Feels a bit like in the Batman Arkham games in which I finished the main campaign and could do the side missions now. I might do it at some point, but probably wont.

 

Episode 7: The Final Thoughts Awaken

So here we are, I've played through most of the content that has been implemented over the last 3 1/2 years and I'm honestly disappointed and confused. Why turn TOR into more of a single player Action-RPG or rather interactive movie with RPG elements? Why not focus the available resources on improving the game on a technical level and really going for more Multiplayer elements? Why not improving the combat to make it feel better and more responsive?

 

Why am I supposed to be The One in an MMO? This was a terrible idea in Age of Conan and it is a terrible idea here. If you don't know hat I'm talking about watch this review (at about 2:30 the important part is metioned):

 

MMOs can be story driven and the old class story lines felt ok. I always felt there were other smugglers or other sith probably doing other things. Now it feels like without me nothing can be done in the universe. This can be good in SP games (you are the hero), but in MMOs it completely destroys the immersion.

 

In addition the heavy focus on story is also misplaced in this game as there are to many technical restrictions. You can't go all out in storytelling. There are lots of visual restrictions. Stories like Knights of the Fallen Empire I would've love to see as a fully fledged separate game with a better engine. Imagine the Battlefront visuals with a great immersive story.

 

The F2P restrictions are terrible and are just there to pretty much force you into subscribing. The Cartel Coin system only seems to be there to get even more money from the players. Oh and the shop interface itself is also terrible.

 

So my final thoughts - the game had potential at release but the devs focused on the wrong things in my opinion. From what I've seen and heard the game is heavily bleeding subs and I'm not even sure if you'll see the end of the Knights of the Fallen Empire storyline. If it will be finished it'll probably be cut short anyway.

 

To bad...

 

Is there an audio book version of this?

[TUXs]

Dammit...you go away for 3-1/2 years and the whole game goes to hell. See, because you've returned, Bioware's metrics will conclude that you LOVE story content, since that's what you returned for, and now we'll be stuck getting nothing but story updates until Fall.

 

[Hombold]

Dammit...you go away for 3-1/2 years and the whole game goes to hell. See, because you've returned, Bioware's metrics will conclude that you LOVE story content, since that's what you returned for, and now we'll be stuck getting nothing but story updates until Fall.

 

 

 

Should I leave again for over 3 years? Maybe then everything is fixed...

[TUXs]

Should I leave again for over 3 years? Maybe then everything is fixed...

 

Well no...don't do that either...we need players

[pegasussgc]

I did not read the whole OP, but I will say that my view on F2P or at least preferred is that it is about where it needs to be. I would only change a couple of things, first get rid of the need for Artifact Equipment Authorization and let unify colors and hide head slot be unlocked free for preferred.

[Ansultares]

So this is first feature locked behind the sub wall.

Not to TLDR you, but this game has the worst F2P lockouts of any MMO on the market.

[Liquor]

Agree with the OP. Been here with 2 active accounts since BETA.Ive gone through all the changes, most are bad. The direction of the game changed. Then we were lied too when 4.0 was touted as a return to the original idea. It's so far from the original direction of the game.

 

Give my companions their gear and all their abilities.

Let me keep my old gear. Return my abilities 2.6 removed.

[chlds]

You pretty much summed up what non boot lickers are feeling.