Whew, stuck at work and the test is still going! Okay, I played a LOT this weekend. I previously did one beta weekend and reached level 17. This weekend I managed to reach level 29. The game changes drastically and fast.
To preface this, the higher level I got in this game the more and more I started liking it. Well I liked it before, but now I REALLY like it. But it is not without faults. Not by a long shot.
When this weekend started, originally I had intended to play the character I had started last time. Unfortunately, Bioware decided to change all the level requirements around and introduced more than a few bugs in regards to item changes. Which basically meant my character from last time couldn't use half of her equipment and I didn't have the money to re-outfit the character properly. Realizing that while it sucked, it was beta and things like that are going to happen. It all turned out well because my guild all decided to do new characters on one of the brand new servers. I still plan on playing sith at release. So as to not ruin my experience and spoil the sith story line I have been doing the Republic for beta. Like last beta I decided to do the same thing and see if I could rebuild my character and do it better. I ended up playing as a Jedi Shadow with heavy tank focus. I managed to reach level 29 before crashing out last night so I can now say I have a broader perspective to give as I tried out several things I didn't do last time such as PVP and space flight mini games.
I'll start with the bad right here and go over what others may have talked about.
1) Graphics: I originally thought they were mediocre, and they still aren't top notch, but higher levels and other worlds have shown me that the graphics aren't as bad as I thought. I just think the starting worlds with the newbie armors make all the characters look BLEH. Then again, it's low level stuff and not meant to be the "bad-ass" items we will get later. As WoW knows, people focus on their character a LOT more when it comes to looking at a games graphics than anything else. That is just the way most people view graphics in a game. Does their character look good? If yes, then good graphics. If no, then the graphics suck. Again, I'm not stating that the graphics are the best out there. They are far from it. But they weren't as bad as I originally thought as I got to see more of the game and the graphics offered. Aesthetics are obviously as personal choice so I know some people love the way the game looks and some will always hate it.
2) The UI is still as clunky as ever. It definitely needs more work.
3) The BUGS!!! OMG The bugs seemed to have grown 10 fold since the last beta weekend. I do realize that was also able to experience more of the game than previously so I would naturally encounter more bugs, but the last patch put in so many bugs that broke things that were working before. Randomly getting stuck to the ground while walking around, have UI lock ups, Item bugs, changing the loot in instances to bug that up, and much more. I couldn't even submit an in game customer service or bug report ticket practically all weekend long as the in game windows for it would never load. It used to work, but for the majority of this weekend it didn't. Heck, no one could use the in game log out features for Friday and most of Saturday at all until they patched that bug. You had to use Alt + F4 to quit the game. Shit like that really chaps my ass. If I run into a mountain of bugs like that after release I'm not going to be happy at all. You can certainly bet I am going to be keeping close tabs with those people I know who are general testers. I pre-ordered the collectors edition for $150 which means I get a head start before the official start. If during that headstart I run into a mountan of bugs I'll be cancelling that pre-order. No doubt about it.
Now that I've talked about the bad things, time for the good.
Holy cow I actually like the story line. I like it a lot! So much to do I found myself quickly out leveling quests but I still kept diligently completing every single one I came across. Mainly because I'm a thorough completion-ist. There is so much to do and see as the planets get MUCH larger past the first two planets. Basically you have the starting newbie planet, and then the slightly harder second planet. Both are small and easy to do. My original beta weekend I never made it past the second planet. I was close, but never did finish clearing all the quests for the second planet and receiving my ship to travel to other planets. Obviously I've accomplished that this time around and all I can say is WOW! Quite a bit bigger. There feels like there is so much to do and see now. The game is definitely NOT SMALL.
Speaking of getting my own ship it's very cool, but I know will not be everyone's cup of tea. Your ship is like your own personal "housing" instance zone. From it you can travel to any planet or use it to do space flight combat mini-games. I state mini-games because that is what it is. It is not a free flight sim. Personally though after doing it I think I prefer the current implementation. Some of my friends have a different opinion as they want a full free flight space game as well. I think that would be too much of a distraction and that a space flight game is basically a whole other game as there are and have been space flight MMO's already done such as EVE and Earth & Beyond. Star Trek is also more space flight than ground as well. So how is space flight done in SWTOR? It is basically a side scroller of sorts except the view point is from behind the ship and not the side. The camera focuses behind your ship as your ship automatically flies forward. You have limited range of motion but your ultimate "path" or course is already predetermined. Each mission is a timed mini game. Your job is to basically shoot down the targets as they fly into view on your screen in the allotted time. Missions don't seem to be longer than 10 minutes or so. They are basically fun little mini games. The space flight is not meant to be the sole focus of SWTOR for which I'm glad. I think it fits in nicely as something else fun to do from time to time.
On the topic of something else to do, I finally gave PVP a go this weekend. I had a BLAST with the PVP and was impressed with it. PvP right now is all done battleground style on the PvE servers, although there are open PVP worlds between the two factions. There are three battle grounds:
Voidstar is an attack/defense based map. One faction either starts as attackers or defenders and then switches. The objective is for the attackers to make it as far as they can to the "end" clickable objective during a limited amount of time while the defenders try to stop them. Once either the attackers reach the end or the time expires then the two sides switch roles. Attackers become defenders and defenders become attackers. If both sides manage to make it to the end the team which did it the fastest is deemed the winner.
Alderaan is a domination style matchup. There are 3 clickable towers on the map or control points. The objective is to hold 2 or 3 of the objectives for longer than your opponent.
The last one is Hutt Ball. This PVP mini game is a BLAST! A ball starts in the middle of the map. Teams start on opposite sides. The objective is to get the ball and move it past the goal line of the opposing team which is where the opposite team starts. There is all sorts of traps and such. As a ball carrier you are slowed down dramatically but you can also pass the ball. It can be a very strategic based game.
A great, and bad, thing about the PVP I like is the bolster effect. From what I understand this is how the bolster effect works. The highest level person is ramped up to level 50 stat wise. From that everyone else is ramped up to 95% or so stat wise of the previous highest person. So if a level 20 is the highest then they are still going to have the highest stats with the bolster effect, but it wont be that much higher than the lowest level person. This gives everyone in theory a chance to kill anyone. In practice it is close. The difference being not the stats but the SKILLS available. A level 20 has just way more skills at their disposal than a level 10. More CC, more attacks, and more defensive moves all will give a pretty big advantage to the higher character over the lower. I also am irritated that PVP starts are level 10. Really my opinion is that you shouldn't be pvping until you are right now at level 14 since that is when you get the sprint skill. The sprint skill is SOOO important in pvp and being without it is a major disadvantage. I was always cringing when I joined a PVP match and saw that all my team mates were all under level 14 while everyone on the enemy team was over level 16. It was basically a slaughter at that point. I really was annoyed having half my team at times without their advanced class picked yet. Which means they had even less skills at their disposal. Still it was fun and most matches are only 10 to 20 minutes in length. I will restate again what I've said before though. Healers are OP as hell in PVP right now. They can't be killed 1v1. It takes several people to take down a healer. Because of the nature of the games for pvp winning is many times decided not by making the most kills but by dying the least. All the PVP maps are objective based. They require players to reach points on the map and do something at those points. Which means being able to survive quite a bit of punishment is MUCH better than being able to dish out a lot of damage. As it is there is no way for anyone to burst down a healer 1v1. Hell even 2v1 or 3v1 is hard if the healer is solely focused on running around, spamming heals and CCs. Most do exactly that as they wait for team mates to show up to kill whomever is trying to fight them. Healers make or break PVP games right now. If your team has a dedicated healer or two and the other team doesn't then the chances are so lopsided for winning in favor of the team with healers. I mean massively lopsided. Beyond that the balance otherwise between classes seem pretty darn good. For reference again I played a Jedi Shadow which is a melee class and did DAMN good in PVP. People claiming range dps is OP in PVP have no idea what they are talking about. They are most certainly EASIER to play, but I literally destroyed every single class I went against 1v1. I have a big guild and was testing it out with many duels on Sunday. I went against equal to higher level players of every class type. Only healers that ran around spamming heals and CC I really couldn't kill. They couldn't kill me either and if they stopped to try they would die. It was as simple as that. That is not to say that Jedi's Shadows are OP because they are not. That is to say that a little bit of player skill can massively overcome going up against an easy to play character type such as a ranged dps are in this game.
As for PVE experience, man it got profoundly better. Basically levels 1-10 are a BREEZE. So simple any moron can do those levels. I think a great many people in these beta weekends think the game is way too easy because most never get much beyond level 10. Even levels 10-16 are still fairly easy with only one or two sorta of difficult instances to do. By difficult here I mean spawns with 2 or 3 elites and maybe a sprinkling of strong/normal mobs in the mix. The bosses are still mainly tank and spank in this range and fairly easy. That all changes when you reach 17ish and do the second flashpoint instance if you decide to do it at equal level. The instances get rough and the bosses are no longer tank and spank. They all require strategy or you WILL DIE. Bosses require different actions. For example the large droid boss on Hammer Station shoots a "beam" attack at a random target. This attack is not always directed at the tank. So this beam that shoots out will stay on the target for about 10 seconds and dish out about 300 damage a second. IT WILL KILL any non tank character very fast. So how does your group deal with this? Well the beam can be bisected. Which means that if a non-tank group member is being hit by the beam then the tank can step in front and have the beam switch to them. Failure to do this correctly will often result in that group member dying. CC is also VERY important as well as having group members that aren't idiots and attack targets indiscriminately or spam AoE attacks. Also a good healer and tank are worth their weight in gold. I was a tank and I literally had several people waiting for me to run instances with them because I was the best tank on the server for my side. I'm serious. I would have several groups line up and WAIT for me to finish an instance with another group. Because doing those instances without a good tank player is suicide. The challenge level of these hard instances is very gratifying. Luckily you are not required to do any of these instances at all. They are just fun to do when done correctly. I managed to do the first 5 flash point instances successfully. Past the first one they were all really, really hard. Since every new boss required a completely new strategy to figure out because no one I was grouping with had done these bosses it sometimes took a couple of wipes to figure out how to beat several of the bosses.
Besides the bugs I really am enjoying the game. I love the diversity of what you can do. Questing, space fighting, crafting, and pvping are all well down in my opinion. I love the story and the quest lines immensely. I love the challenge and difficulty at higher levels that are hard because they require strategy and good team work to over come instead of just making the boss hit harder or something stupid which is what most games try to pass off as a difficult boss fight. SWTOR delivers that single player RPG feel in an online game and I love that.