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Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Thu Jun 25, 2015 18:14
by Raiah
Ah, nice, not surprising but good to know they thought of it.
As for abilities that are mostly the same, I know that at least some classes have abilities that you basically aren't supposed to use (not in a 'proper rotation' anyway). Some of these are base class abilities rendered useless by your advanced class (like the two or three melee abilities sages get). In some cases you have two basically identical abilities because your chosen discipline (that's the name now right?) gives a new ability that basically has the same affect but is slightly better and with another animation (I know commando/mercenary has this). Think there are a few abilities you get with advanced class that are mostly used with specific disciplines as well.
Despite all that I think the biggest issue is all the "situational" abilities. All the defence boosts, shields, stuns, interrupts, threat dumps, cc breakers and so on... There are way to many of them. Most classes have three or more interrupts I think (except two work by stunning and won't work on bosses).
On a high level character you'll have over 20 active skill on your hotbars, and that's if you've removed a some of the less useful abilities and choose not to have stuff like medkits in your hotbars. That's more than twice as many abilities as the default keybindings handle and half of those are out of reach without moving your hand. No wonder there are so many 'clickers'...
The current trend in MMOs are to limit you to a smaller set of abilities in your active build, say 8-12 abilities, while usually giving your more than that to choose from. Personally I think this is a way better approach. It's fewer keys to keep track of which makes the game both easier to get in to and easier to get
back in to (which I feel is a big issue with SWTOR) and it often leads to a larger amount of viable builds than SWTOR's one build/rotation per discipline.
I would love to see Bioware rework the abilities in the game and this would be a great time to do it if they are changing so many other things. But I'm well aware that a lot of people would get really angry about it because people hate change and a large portion would probably be upset that it "dumbs down the game" (which is ridiculous because frankly, the main gameplay consist of press tab and then these keys in sequence and repeat, it doesn't get any simpler, any time where there is more depth to the combat it's not because of how many abilities you have but due to mob behaviour or other mechanics).
Wow, that got a bit longer than I though it would... Hope someone actually reads it because I'd love to see other peoples thoughts on it
we do know it won't use the system we see in the game now -- two players sharing dialogue choices in cut scenes
Huh, they're even redoing the dialogue system? :O
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 09:46
by Exerxes
Duuuuuuude, I totally agree 100%! Hehehe.
And you explained it more eloquently than I ever could have.
I do find Swtor to be a frustrating experience; it's got the story-aspects of Kotor but the combat of pre-expansion WoW. Story is good, combat is tough. Miss a button rotation? Have an un-optimised build? Not got the right gear? Then you're dead.
All those abilities just make it even more confusing and frustrating. Whenever I come back, it takes a good while for me to figure out what I'm supposed to do with the class; and 9 times outta 10 I end up just copying some build off the net.
I'm not sure how Bioware cottoned onto the idea that "Heroic Combat", as they once declared, meant getting nailed in the face... I certainly don't feel Heroic when my Jedi "Master" has 100 HP left after fighting three robots...
But I guess that's a problem underlying all MMO's; how to balance combat difficulty so it's a challenge for players yet not impossible? You don't get difficulty modes for PVE Story/Quest Mobs afterall.
Yeah, I'm a lightweight when it comes to games I guess; I like a nice casual easy time. Swtor is not that... I got enough frustration and difficulty in my real life, I don't need it in my games too! Hehehe
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:04
by Lisszia
Well.. I do love the variety of skills for RP/PvE or RP /PvP use, and probably that is why the only game I'm playing with is this one... Lately I miss that in games, not that they are more easy or more hard.. Just the feeling..
I'm not using the best build with some of my galls for RP reasons (I re-speck them for hard PVE endgame or PvP but for usual questing)
I'd miss it if they would change it.. probably would be the last drop to make me leave game and stay only as Preferred player. But I know many do not think that way, and I think they will probably change it at some point after all it is hat most paying gamers want what they should do.
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 17:54
by Raiah
But is there really variety? Sure, in regular questing content one can generally get by while just activating mostly random abilities... But say I'm doing a build for Nessalia it's not like I can ignore bludgeon or sucker punch without massively gimping the character. On my bounty hunter I can just skip the tracer missiles or rail shot. For the main abilities your pretty locked down by your class.
Compare this to Wildstar for example where you pick 8 active abilities from a selection of 30 (broken up in to assault, support and utility with 10 of each kind), you can easily have two characters off the same class that play completely differently and.
I'd actually like to see more abilities in SWTOR, more active combat abilities that are viable for you main rotation, that'd be great for variety. What I'd like to see streamlined are all the situational abilities, do we really need more than two stun/interrupt abilities (by which I mean short stuns, not the 1min CC)?
It's possible I could actually remove some of the abilities from my bars, but what if suddenly I actually need it? That's the problem with so many situational/utility skills.
Well, they are aware there is a bit of an issue at least, the fact that the (finally) merged Shoot first and Backblast with 3.0 is proof of that
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 19:04
by Lisszia
And I do still miss that .. but well it makes it easier to handle .. But I do miss in RP the animation and even now still have to remind myself that I do not need to use the shoot first ability.
For me it gives a chance to use some variety yes, and of curse I wil not use some only PvP skills even if they suiting Nekni in an ops, nor will use some things in PvP what I use for normal questing. But as long as I IC quest I can let myself use things I want. I do not mind that the class gives some base attacks what I have to use, even if for RP reasons there were times not using them in IC questing.. but only some of them. My chars class was also selected in the style they use. even advanced class what meant class change for Siar for example after 3.0.
I guess I just like to use many shiny abbilites. Probably this is the reason why the only other game I'm playing has even more abilities.. that one is not MMO and round based. Some of the skills has really slight difference en effect still.. As I said I do like it and will miss it, even if I can understand most will not. And that they will probably change it, but will most likely mean me pulling out form Endgame totally and keep on only RP. I did not like Wild star, tried it, did not made me want to stay. Nor WoW nor TESO. Same goes for some other games not only MMO-s.
For me this was one of the reasons I liked SWTOR, from the start, I really enjoyed the skill system. Was one of the reasons I stayed in game, even if I'm not really a star wars fan, I like fantasy much more then science fiction, and if that then I'm clearly Babylon 5 fan. This is one thing what made me stick with game the other is my girls who by the time Pata more or less left game had their RP life here. that I think I will keep even if they change things.
I did and do enjoy having my jedi finishing some battles on 100 HP. I think there are much more tho who prefer things like you or Ex, and I can understand a game, and especially an MMO game has to use mechanics and style more people like, and can not serve the wishes of only some.
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 12:05
by SethAltair
I found this lately. It sheds a bit more light on the starting setting of the story and what happened before. However! It has spoilers for the first few hours of the expansion, so watch at your own risk and if you comment, be mindful of not spoiling others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsBfLFK0Kek
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 18:12
by Raiah
People may have seen them (being a few weeks old), people might not... But I found these two posts on dulfy and thought they had some interesting information.
First,
http://dulfy.net/2015/06/22/swtor-massi ... -in-kotfe/
We knew it already I think but not class specific stories (have they done any since base game anyway), if they're taking inspiration from KOTOR and Mass Effect storytelling that's hardly surprising, it means a single more in-depth story.
Story being completely solo is somewhat of a surprise though, have to take turns if you want to play with a friend. I haven't really played through any story in multiplayer but I did do a large part of the BH one like that and it was fun.
Second,
http://dulfy.net/2015/06/17/swtor-no-cr ... -in-kotfe/
Again, not really a surprise but we have confirmation. No faction merge, not even a unified queue for PVE content. I really was hoping they'd try something different, give us a period in the Star Wars universe where we didn't have Republic/Rebels and Sith Empire (well, obviously we have such a period before the movies start but it's never explored is it?) but oh well.
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 12:15
by Raiah
Q&A from the latest cantina tour
http://dulfy.net/2015/07/12/swtor-sdcc- ... a-tour-qa/
Some interesting ones:
Q: Any of the old planets getting love? (i.e. Tatooine etc)
A: Some will be revisited in Fallen Empire.
Q: Can you go back to play the original story with your new autoleveled level 60?
A: Short answer is no.
This is confusing, I could have sworn they've said they would go back and revamp some story missions and that you would be able to replay them. I swear they said that somewhere... Doesn't make much sense to revamp the old missions, let you start at 60 and not let you replay. I guess the revamp might just be a permanent addition of the 12x experience or something.
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 13:37
by Lisszia
I was sort of afraid they will close the old map for, and you will not able to go back to old planets itself if you go to the expansion story. Like you loose some map if you play the story through just now, unable to go back to some maps you finished... Would be sad tho to loose old RP places, and unable to meet new chars planet side while they level.. we will see.
Re: "Knights of the Fallen Empire" officially announced
Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 15:58
by Raiah
Some will be "revisited" though, whatever that means. They might be updated to reflect events between Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire but that would probably be good for RP since it means the environments are updated to the new timeframe rather than ignoring it and remain stuck in the past. But then they did only say some of them...
I wouldn't worry about old areas going away... Earlier expansions haven't touched earlier areas so I wouldn't worry with this one.