That's weird from a healing perspective, at least. All of the healing classes are pretty much defined by the skills they gain from their talent trees.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Star Wars: The Old Republic [Early Access: December 13th] Thread 2
- Thread starter Emitan
- Start date
- Status
That's weird from a healing perspective, at least. All of the healing classes are pretty much defined by the skills they gain from their talent trees.
cartoon_soldier
Member
About questing, If you don't want to do
mindless grind quests MMO is not the game for you.
at least with SWTOR I know why I am doing these things for an NPC.
mindless grind quests MMO is not the game for you.
at least with SWTOR I know why I am doing these things for an NPC.
There is indeed something to be said about the lack of ingenuity on BW's part entering the MMO space, particularly given the budget this game has. I am thinking from their point of view that they're trying to deliver what people want based purely on what they are enjoying playing now (Mainly WoW) and trying to service that expectation by replicating it as much as possible, rather than breaking new ground explicitly (though voice overs make the story far more relevant - rat killing quests included). From a financial stand point this makes perfect sense (Insert Lucas/EA money mongering jokes here) And my hope is that they will add more to the game as time goes on that is fresh and fun and not merely too little too late ("Oh hey, we are dropping subs, inject pokemon!")
The game was extremely fun while I played it in beta (though this is admittedly coming from a guy that thought Jedi Knights were fun to play - not just mechanic~wise but, I also liked the way the story was heading) though yes, the beta did have it's flaws and yes with release right around the corner, it's fucking worrisome to a reasonable degree. Most of those concerns will be addressed in a timely fashion, so I am not super pissed/angry (to a troll-like level) like some people seem to be.
The game was extremely fun while I played it in beta (though this is admittedly coming from a guy that thought Jedi Knights were fun to play - not just mechanic~wise but, I also liked the way the story was heading) though yes, the beta did have it's flaws and yes with release right around the corner, it's fucking worrisome to a reasonable degree. Most of those concerns will be addressed in a timely fashion, so I am not super pissed/angry (to a troll-like level) like some people seem to be.
December 15 is the first day of early access.
Well they said up to 5 days early, so I assume we'll know within the next 10 days =P
This game has been in development a long time.
Its very likely when key design decisions were made on SWTOR, many gamers had not quite hit MMO grind-kill-fetch quest fatigue.
There also comes a time in a game's development where you reach the point-of-no-return and you simply have to live and die with what you've created because you can't go back and change fundamental things without scrapping the whole game and starting over.
cartoon_soldier
Member
And WoW was largely Everquest done well too I believe.
The only MMO game that may challenge the prevailing mechanics is Guild Wars 2. But guess what, even it will have, kill 10 bandits attacking the village quests.
Retrofluxed
Member
Yeah, I was going to say as a Sorc Healer, I couldn't wait for my next level so I could get a new heal or modifier to my heals.
DimmuBurgerKing
Member
Anyone who says this didn't play EQ. WoW is as different from EQ as EQ was from UO.
cartoon_soldier
Member
And I didn't play EQ, just what I have been reading.
krameriffic
Member
Maybe when specced healing, but up to level 25 in the beta weekend, I had two heals: big, slow efficient heal and small, fast inefficient heal. I support healed with my DPS spec in some group stuff, but there was no variety or strategy to it.
The DPS spec never changed how I played the class. The biggest boon I got out of the talent tree was Telekinetic Wave as an AoE nuke. It was decent, but nothing special, just an initiator skill for large groups.
Last Hearth
Member
Exactly, if I can get 350 hours out of this game, I will be more than happy with my purchase, of course for me 350 hours is more likely to last 8-12 month
Right... because you were lacking those pivotal healing talents that expand on that segment of the class' gameplay. This seems like a receipt of the thing you were saying did not exist in the talent trees.
Last Hearth
Member
Completely opposite of my experience last weekend as a Sage. When I picked up Deliverance my healing effectiveness went through the roof compared to before.
I'm going to disagree with you on the first part. For me, being seamless makes it feel like a true world, there is a connection, a coherence, in knowing that everything has a specific place in the world where I can go walking if I want (mostly). Right now, I feel very disconnected with TOR universe. True space travel in some way could reinforce a lot the illusion, but I understand it´s hard (still hoping for a Jump to Lightspeed type expansion).
I agree with you on other parts of your post and about story phases (brilliant design there).
I never played UO so I don't get your comparison between EQ and UO, but I couldn't disagree with you more in saying that WoW is vastly different from EQ (if that's what you are saying).
I played EQ for 3 years and WoW for 5.
WoW is very much the successor to EQ in almost every way. At their hearts they are both text-based MUDs with graphical layers thrown on top. WoW basically took the worst parts of EQ and tried to make it more accessible for a larger number of people. Almost everything about the games are similar though - they are both set in high fantasy worlds and feature level-based advancement and the unlocking of skills as you level up which give you the tools to move on the next area or zone until you get to the level cap. Then at that point the main focus of the game is on guild-based raiding. As you level up you can also form small parties to tackle various dungeon content.
Tigole and Furor were a couple of the original designers of WoW and where did they come from? One of the top raiding guilds in EQ - Fires of Heaven. There are differences in EQ and WoW, but for the most part, they are the exact same game, except EQ started from nothing, and WoW had 5-7 years of figuring out how to make it better, along with having the Warcraft license and a big company behind it.
So.... because it's happening/happened in WoW and because it MIGHT get changed his complaints aren't valid?
Star Fox minigame is cool though, so there's that.
Alex
Member
Launch WoW was a cleaned up EQ-like with quest based leveling. UO was a level-less sandbox MMO, I think there's a huge gulf there, myself.
I wish we could get a new, fleshed out sandbox type, odd that we don't considering they aren't as content demanding and would probably have more exciting word of mouth if done well, nowadays.
As for TOR and newness, it really doesnt do anything special, but I think it handles it's own basics well and is a pretty fun experience. It's a polished game with solid questing and dungeons and design and it isn't WoW. Honestly, having a good game that just isn't (literally) WoW is going to be appealing to some people, like me! Even when I like the stuff WoW is doing like with 4.3 and Pandaria, i just am sick of it, playing off and on for all those years will ruin basically any game. The controls, the quirks, the look, etc, old players can see all of the strings, smoke and mirrors at this point on every mechanic, even if Cataclysm didn't faceplant most of the year people are just getting spent, I think. They need Titan.
So back to TOR, so far I like it, I don't see it on the long term though, they have a really expensive design type and it'll be so rough to add content regularly with it and I don't think a lot of folks are going to abide by just crapping out raids every few months. They're too quiet.
I wish we could get a new, fleshed out sandbox type, odd that we don't considering they aren't as content demanding and would probably have more exciting word of mouth if done well, nowadays.
As for TOR and newness, it really doesnt do anything special, but I think it handles it's own basics well and is a pretty fun experience. It's a polished game with solid questing and dungeons and design and it isn't WoW. Honestly, having a good game that just isn't (literally) WoW is going to be appealing to some people, like me! Even when I like the stuff WoW is doing like with 4.3 and Pandaria, i just am sick of it, playing off and on for all those years will ruin basically any game. The controls, the quirks, the look, etc, old players can see all of the strings, smoke and mirrors at this point on every mechanic, even if Cataclysm didn't faceplant most of the year people are just getting spent, I think. They need Titan.
So back to TOR, so far I like it, I don't see it on the long term though, they have a really expensive design type and it'll be so rough to add content regularly with it and I don't think a lot of folks are going to abide by just crapping out raids every few months. They're too quiet.
HarryDemeanor
Member
SOE is apparently making one when John Smedley was talking about the SWG shutdown.
Alex
Member
SOE, though.... Myself, I've never liked anything theyve made. Also, I'm old school UO >>> EQ! Boo, Verant, boo!
Giolon
Member
I just think that he's making mountains out of molehills. These are the kinds of problems that even the best MMOs tend to have when they're launched, and they're the kinds of things that almost always get fixed within a couple months. I mean we're not talking server crashes, data corruption, and character loss here. They're things that are annoying or need improvement, and they will come with a little time.
Also, I forgot to metion before that his comments about being able to trade out secondary stats for primary stats w/ the mod system is untrue - the only primary stat you can get instead of secondary stats is Endurance (health). Nobody's going to be trading out crit rating for their primary stat b/c it can't happen.
HarryDemeanor
Member
Yeah, that's the only thing that sucks about that.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
If the first 20 levels are the good ones, then this game is truly terrible.
Alex
Member
I wonder if my hair will vanish when zoning like Conan. I used to trash on Funcom for their bugs, but they sort of make the game awesome in their own way. That SA article about Anarchy Online back in the day was so incredible, haha.
Giolon
Member
So, I'm trying to commemorate the end of my time in beta by taking lots of screenshots and even a few videos. Here is a video I took last night on Corellia (level 48) taking out an Elite that's the end of a Bonus quest line:
Download (38MB) Youtube
I'm not going to promise it's the most epic or exciting video in the world, but you can see what high level Consular Sage (healing spec'd) gameplay is like including some companion micro (when it looks like she's walking away ignoring the guy beating on her, it's b/c I told her to so she'd get out of AoE range of the CC). There are no spoilers in this video.
Here's a video of a quest dialogue on Corellia that's part of the Consular's storyline. It has only minor spoilers. I love my Consular's voice.
Download (10MB) Youtube
And finally a batch of full-detail screenshots (all clickable):
Download (38MB) Youtube
I'm not going to promise it's the most epic or exciting video in the world, but you can see what high level Consular Sage (healing spec'd) gameplay is like including some companion micro (when it looks like she's walking away ignoring the guy beating on her, it's b/c I told her to so she'd get out of AoE range of the CC). There are no spoilers in this video.
Here's a video of a quest dialogue on Corellia that's part of the Consular's storyline. It has only minor spoilers. I love my Consular's voice.
Download (10MB) Youtube
And finally a batch of full-detail screenshots (all clickable):
krameriffic
Member
Yeah but Deliverance is a core skill you earn at level 12. It's an extremely basic healing mechanic, exactly like I said in my post: big, resource-efficient, slow cast time. It doesn't synergize in any particular way with other skills, it doesn't require any choices or special playstyles from the user, it's basically just another heal spell. You have it after playing the game for a few hours and that's pretty much the whole story.
Giolon
Member
Having played the Seer (healing) spec'd Sage to 50 twice now, you are wrong. There are talents that synergize with other skills, particularly the Rejuvenate talent and its assocated Conveyance talent.
There's really only one MMO to compete. Everything else is pretty shit compared to WoW.
So it is better than every other MMO except WoW, but even then, TOR tips the scale in its favour with features WoW doesn't have.
cartoon_soldier
Member
So while my crafting and gathering skill go forward easily, mission skills are harder to keep at the same pace. lol.
Still confused on whether I want to go Cybertech or Biochem at launch
Still confused on whether I want to go Cybertech or Biochem at launch
cartoon_soldier
Member
Been thinking about rolling a non-human/sithblood character. Originally was set on rolling human, but lots of humans around...
I wonder if I should roll a female with a Man's name...lol
I'm not surprised by the negative comments, since Bioware have big weaknesses. They simply do not have great game designers working for them (and it's not in their company culture to be perfectionist and get everything right or as flawless as possible if you look at how buggy the Dragon age expansion was...) and it's obvious if you play their single player games imo. Jade empire was a great example of a lack of talent in game design 101. The action rpg part was functional, that's it. It lacked everything else to make it good, let alone great.
If you go cybertech, you can pick up salvage and slicing. Both are gathering skills.
Yeah, I had that problem of my mission lagging behind. I didn't need a lot of the stuff crew mission were giving me, and I had to save up for my speedbike. I realized after a while that crew missions were eating a shitton of cash.
You would have been right, except it's a completely different studio. Can't really take the same expectations.
cartoon_soldier
Member
Underworld Trading because I need the underworld metals to make the good mods for my armor.
Underworld Trading mats are easy ways to get the rare mats from gathering, but you can get them with salvaging from what I understand. I could be wrong as I never done it at the end.
Slicing was just ideal for Cybertech because there are rare schematics that are gotten through slicing missions.
No, I think it's got everything to do with management to begin with even if Bioware has numerous teams. If the Bioware doctors are mostly clueless as to what kind of employees it take to make a great playing game, what are the chance of them hiring the right people for game design?. It seems the doctors didn't even notice that the item UI for Mass effect was beyond terrible, so that should tell you how much they know themselves about game design to begin with. Bioware employees are smart and rational people, but it doesn't make them great game designers. You need instinct or "instinctive intelligence" as Steve Job possessed. This is why there's lot of "smart" people who fail in creative oriented fields as they simply do not have the instincts and only the intellect.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
I've always thought that vanilla wow had the best talent tree's. It allowed for the most flexibility and let you itemize to your core strengths as oppsed to fall into the build of the month.
RaySpencer
Member
Armstech or Armourmech for a Trooper Commando??
I love the big guns, but I want to have rad armour all the time!! Is there a good breakdown on the crafting anywhere? Id like to see if its worth focusing on, and maybe see what some of the stuff looks like.
I need to look rad all the time, but if the guns you can craft are amazing, I will do that instead.
I love the big guns, but I want to have rad armour all the time!! Is there a good breakdown on the crafting anywhere? Id like to see if its worth focusing on, and maybe see what some of the stuff looks like.
I need to look rad all the time, but if the guns you can craft are amazing, I will do that instead.
Vanilla WoW talent trees were brutal, and that's being polite. I played a druid back then, and both feral and balance simply weren't functional. Cat form was about as much dps as being in caster form and hitting with a weapon.
You may be talking about the initial revamp while it was still vanilla WoW, but still it simply wasn't great in any shape or form. Heck, Blizzard will be doing away with the talent trees and I'm looking forward to trying them out in the Mist of Pandaria beta.les papillons sexuels
Banned
Vanilla WoW talent trees were brutal, and that's being polite. I played a druid back then, and both feral and balance simply weren't functional. Cat form was about as much dps as being in caster form and hitting with a weapon.
Yeah, but it's even more broken now, at least in vanilla wow a rogue actually did more dmg then a druid cat. I'd argue that talent trees should not be something that defines your playing experience, the weaker the better, they're only there to supplement your playing style. (hence why new wow trees suck ass, they define your playing style far too much).
Doesn't work that way.
Bioware CEO or such higher up doesn't make game design decisions for whatever team. Edmonton studios has nothing to do with Austin studios. They're doing their own separate thing. Sure, they can share some ideals and give each other feedback, but studios don't step on each other's toes.
And Steve Job "intelligent"? Wtf analogy is that? Steve Job is the master of making shit and still getting people to buy it. Not a great designer at all or an influence of great design.
If you think Steve Jobs didn't have influence on Apple products you're delusional. Apple also makes amazing products. The Macbook Air and Macbook Pro are the two best laptops on the market.
Haha no. Apple products are terrible overpriced crap. I'd get more from an Asus laptop. Last off topic post.
les papillons sexuels
Banned
Steve jobs did nothing in design, his design experience and education consisted of a single typography class he took in post secondary. He was in the right place at the right time while Wosniak did all the work. Jobs was a pitch man, and nothing more. Most of apples good design stems from Deiter Rams, and braun designs from the 60's, along with jonathon ive.
(want proof just do a search comparison between apple design and braun design from the 60's)
GAF Empire US East PvE
Pretty sure I'm rolling Bounty Hunter but Im not sure which AC to go with. Ive never played WoW so Im not sure how to read what Ive seen of the talent trees. Theres no respec for PvE at all is that right? Would I just have to reroll if I do something Im not happy with?
Pretty sure I'm rolling Bounty Hunter but Im not sure which AC to go with. Ive never played WoW so Im not sure how to read what Ive seen of the talent trees. Theres no respec for PvE at all is that right? Would I just have to reroll if I do something Im not happy with?
Spiritreaver
Member
You can respec trees but not advanced classes.
- Status