Your impressions of SWTOR 4.0

Hello,

I'm just curious what your impressions on / of 4.0 are ... Me, I'm still quite confused, and I believe that I'll take days until I get everything ...

Kai Zykken's tree log is a marvellous thing, though !

Alrik

I've played through chapter 1-3 so far, and while it's been interesting, I'm also still a bit confused. Or rather, I'm not used to the changes yet. It seems very combat heavy for something so focused on story, and I'm not sure I like the companion changes (the streamlining, which means that no companion feels unique anymore), but the actual story seems quite good. Quite a few pieces are falling into place now regarding a certain emperor, though his ultimate motive still eludes me. I'll have to play more to find out I guess.

I've finished the nine chapters and played through a part of the Star Fortress story arc so far and done some of the new contacts missions.

The story is pretty good but the lack of challenge has reached a new all-time low. There is literally nothing to do but press the forward key until you get to the next cutscene. They should really start adding difficulty settings to the story missions or just somehow make them more engaging and involving. Anything, please.
This super-easy casual mode is completely silly though. It undermines the idea that you have really fought a tangible "threat" if everything is a pushover. There is absolutely no sense of accomplishment either.

I'm sure that hard mode (Star Fortress flashpoint) will more than make up for it. Some of the level 60 flashpoints were already ridiculously hard in hard mode. That's another problem of making things too easy in normal/story/solo mode. It is so easy that it does not prepare you in any way for hard mode at all. Except for the level layout, you learn absolutely nothing that could be useful in hard mode.

As for the rest of the 4.0 changes, I have seen people compare this to SWG's NGE which is an example of insane hyperbole and probably just means that those people have not even played SWG or know what the NGE did to the game.
The SWTOR changes are substantial in some areas but there is nothing even remotely close to the level how the NGE completely turned SWG upside down.
There are some very nice changes in 4.0 for more convenience.

What I don't like is the planetary level adjustment. When I leveled up my Consular I probably played through 90%+ of the HEROIC+2/+4 planetary missions. I have no real intention of going back and doing any of them again as a reborn artificial "n00b".

I quite enjoyed the rewarding sense of accomplishment to be a max level player and scoff at the lower level content. It was also convenient to be able to travel these planets without getting aggro'd or if so being able to get rid of the critters in two seconds.

Another thing I don't like is forced companions. When will BioWare ever learn? *sigh* … looks like you can get most (all?) of your old companions back from doing the contacts missions though so I'm hoping the old crew will be reassembled soon-ish.

I'm indifferent on the crafting changes so far. Some good, some bad from the looks of it. I'm guessing that all of my "work" on reverse-engineering is now naught? I was working my way down the biochem tree and got stuck somewhere half way down the 'Implants' tree. Looks like all of that is in the 'Archive' section now and worthless (or not?)
I'm guessing it will take some time to figure out the exact impact of these changes on the game and on the GTN prices.

All in all not bad for a "free" expansion but I will cancel my account as soon as I have finished Star Fortress and got my character fully decked out in the new level 208+ gear.
I will resub for Chapter X. The story is good enough to make me want to see it to the end but please BioWare…. add difficulty levels… anything to give us at least a *slight* challenge.

P.S.: For anyone waxing nostalgic about KotOR check the attached screenshot from this expansion. BioWare has not entirely forgotten apparently (though I'm not a big fan of the "cinematic" mode to be honest) .

What mainly confused me is that most of my crafting materials got converted into ... heaps of what I don't need right now. Especially Electrum.

I've played quite a bit more now, and I've completed the "main story" with two characters, in addition to doing some level 65 stuff. Last night I did a heroic Star Fortress solo, and that was so hard I'm not going to do it again until I gear up a bit more and increase my companion ranks. The final boss hit like a truck, so I had to kite him around a lot.

Like you, Moriendor, I am not a fan of the scaling. It feels silly to suddenly be "on par" with stuff on Tatooine again. Well, that's not entirely true - despite the scaling, we do still have our high level abilities and such, so heroic quests are a lot easier than they were before, but still.. I find it annoying that I can't just shut it off if I'm simply there because the completionist in me wants me to quickly get through some stuff I skipped.

Also, I'm not a fan of some of the recruitment missions. Most of them are fine, and it's fun to gather this big alliance, but doing a bunch of PvP matches or world bosses? The recruits in question are entirely optional, but it still feels a bit out of context.

Edit: Weren't there supposed to be 10 chapters from the start, and then six more next year? Perhaps the 10th is coming with the actual release of the game?

I decided to try 4.0 and was able to snag a referral (it grant 7 days of subs), instead of subbing right away. My original plan was waiting for when all the chapters were available next year before subbing, but all the talking online made come see what 4.0 was all about.

I decide to make a new character for now: a Jedi Consular which I haven't played through since the game released.

After advancing through Tython for a bit, I realized that some side quests were missing I've done a few side quests, but some had the original quest givers there, but they don't have the quest icon over their heads. After looking online this morning, it seems nobody is sure if they require show exploration missions, if there is a bug or if they were really removed from the game. It is kinda confusing, especially when BioWare isn't saying anything about it.

Before getting my referrals I also saw a lots of bugs that only affect F2P/Preferred. Seems like my idea of waiting for next year was a good one in retrospect.

I will continue my new Cyborg Consular story and I will agonize over the Sage or Shadow choice tomorrow. I already played both spec on previous characters (one Consular and one Inquisitor).

Maylander said:

Edit: Weren't there supposed to be 10 chapters from the start, and then six more next year? Perhaps the 10th is coming with the actual release of the game?

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9 from the start and 16 total, next one should come in January (right on time for The Force Awaken).

More leveling experience on 4.0.

First, my missing quests were under "explorable missions", but the icons for them is bugged in game. They shows up on the map, but not always in-game. Also, from doing the ones on Tython, they took the most boring quests to make them explorable…you can totally ignore them (unless you really want those common crystals).

I just read on Reddit that the introduction quests in the Fleet now grant level 55 rewards (so you jump quite a few levels). More bugs, wouhou! I'm starting to think they added downscaling more because the XP gain is totally out of whack now, lol.

Speaking of downscaling, I get the feeling you are still very overpowered considering that my level 11 JC (Shadow) is destroying everything on Tython. This might have to do with datacrons now being legacy-wide though (I had a lot of them on my first 3 characters) . Lets not talk about companions, their stats are out of whack too…


Oh they also changed how conversation is acquired on companions. If you are level 50, they are all unlocked, that means I could unlock all the companion bonuses…if I can stand hours of cutscene conversations. The previous way it worked I never bothered finishing most of them because gaining the influence to unlock the convo was too expensive (aka buying gifts) and most of the companion were totally useless for my build to bring along.

In a way, I see the new leveling experience made to please two groups of people:
people who want to rush to level 65 and for people who just want to have fun questing. I mean, you are finally able to do Nar Shaddaa before Taris/Balmora and Alderaan before Tatooine. I always found it stupid how the game suggested that you could do that, but how the planet level ranged worked totally discouraged it. Now you will be overleveled and downscaling will make sure you are not penalized for doing it.

I will probably post more impression in a few days, once I leveled some more. I can't wait to see the crafting change from the bottom (it's just confusing from the top) and the "soloable" FP stuff.

It seems that they removed most, if not all, HEroic Missions quest givers - and changed everything into these "exploration missions".

For my taste, personally, what Bioware did there is a step too far. They removed EVERYTHING from the game that's not a) class story b) planetary story , cynically put.
Since this made me somewhat angry, I haven't been trying to find out whether more quest-givers had been removed.

To me, SWTOR looks much more shallow now - because I prefer "side-stories" as well (the Heroics had full intro, mission and outro cutscenes !).

I believe that they funnelled the experience into level 65 too strongly ... It's like an motorhighway to me now.

I love the Companions' stories, though. I haven't unlocked everything there, but it's still fun to me.

azarhal said:

Oh they also changed how conversation is acquired on companions. If you are level 50, they are all unlocked, that means I could unlock all the companion bonuses…if I can stand hours of cutscene conversations. The previous way it worked I never bothered finishing most of them because gaining the influence to unlock the convo was too expensive (aka buying gifts) and most of the companion were totally useless for my build to bring along.

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OK, I get useless for combat but have you really never done any crafting or crew missions? Max affection (now influence) has always had an effect on crit chance, the speed at which they get stuff done and AFAIK also the amount of units they bring back from a mission. Well, and now their combat effectiveness depends on it, too.

But even under the old system it definitely made sense to max companion affection as soon as possible after hitting level 50.
I fully agree that it was an expensive and mind-numbing grind . They really need to make it so you can stuff a stack of gifts in their face and not be forced to go one-by-one with an activation timer on top of it.


As for myself, I'm almost done with SWTOR (again) for now. When the Rakghoul event hits next week I will finish my last Alliance mission (the one where you need to deploy some probes in the Rakghoul area) and that's it then until next year when the next wave of chapters arrives.
I will probably resub when all chapters are available. Kind of pointless for me to play it in mini-chunks since I tend to have a very bad memory when it comes to video game stories. I can barely remember what happened in the first nine chapters and that was only two weeks ago .

Alrik Fassbauer said:

It seems that they removed most, if not all, HEroic Missions quest givers - and changed everything into these "exploration missions".

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Some of the Heroic Missions quest givers are still there, and them being "gone" might be a bug because the terminal quest mention that you can get the quest from X in the game world too (at least on Tython, but the dude is clearly missing).

Also, not all side quests are "exploration missions" (quest icon with the little *). Heroic have normal side quest icons along with quite a few others. On Tython, there was more normal side quests than exploration missions ones.

Moriendor said:

OK, I get useless for combat but have you really never done any crafting or crew missions?

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I never found crafting that much interesting in any MMOs so I tend to not care about it much. I maxed only one profession, BioChem on my very first character and having low affection on most the companions didn't stop me.

Me, I found crating always interesting. In fact, it occupied 1/4 of my time in SWTOR ! :lol:

That means, though, in the other hand that I'm a bit disappooin ted by it now. So many ingredients have been removed ... I had always found joy searching and hunting for them like treasures ! :lol:

I only craft for me and my friends, though.
I'm not one of those people who see crafting as a mere way to get Credits.

Leveling impression update.

I finally reached Coruscant and did the first sector quest. First, the downleveling cap you to the max level of the planet. Coruscant goes form level 10 to 18, that means that you have grey mobs and quests barely gives you anything outside of class quest for like half of it. I was level 19 when I reached the planet (gained 3 levels doing the Esseles).

Speaking of that FP, I did the solo version with Qyzen. They give you a droid helper and bosses area have kolto dispense to help…except they are totally not needed unless you solo the place I guess. Qyzen has twice my HP and hit twice has hard now. The rest of of the Guild sector was just as stupid easy (although I was over level), including the Heroic there. I'm starting to think that solo without a companion is the way to go.

They really need to work on balance.

Yes, it's quite easy for the most part now. The only challenge I've come across after 4.0 was soloing the six heroic Star Fortresses (twice, two characters). The rest is generally so easy the companions can do it alone, which feels slightly odd.

Yes, the Companions' strength have led to lots of discussioins & irritations.

Indeed. The companions + the automatic scaling seems to be the main topics right now on the official forums.

I decided to stop caring about gear upgrades for the foreseeable future. Three gold star mobs in an heroic can't take me and my companion below half-health when neither are bothering doing healing or CC with subpar gears...

My impression is that downleveling isn't harsh enough and not just companions being overpowered. Saying that, it does make doing quests way faster.

For my taste, it is too fast.
Plus, this "fast levelling" is also hurting the game : People don't stay in the levelling proicess that much anymore ... And thuis they don't spend much money on the game that much anymore meanwhile ... Be it through subscriptions or through un locks ... And this is - imho - directly going to hurt SWTOR's financial income.
Thus, EA gets a more ready reason to close it down, I fear ...

Companion healing nerf incoming in the next patch (4.0.2) according to datamining.

As a few people said in the comments: bye, bye solo heroics...

They certainly messed up big-time on balance. I quite like the other changes, though, and I'll definitely get back to this one day.

However, for my MMO fix, I have to say I'm finding ESO to be superior in almost every way - and significantly so. Perhaps most importantly, I could just never get comfortable with the atrocious engine they're using in TOR. I'm still amazed when I think about the amount of money and the people involved with developing this game. What were they thinking!

As such, I'd feel like I'd be wasting my time playing such an inferior game - even though they're very different when it comes to the setting.

Recently, I played TOR with the GF for a while, and we both enjoyed it - but after I introduced her to ESO - we haven't looked back

DArtagnan said:

However, for my MMO fix, I have to say I'm finding ESO to be superior in almost every way - and significantly so. Perhaps most importantly, I could just never get comfortable with the atrocious engine they're using in TOR. I'm still amazed when I think about the amount of money and the people involved with developing this game. What were they thinking!

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You don't know that ESO and TOR use the same engine?

Zenimax Online lied about only using the Hero Engine for prototyping over blacklash from TOR in 2013, you get a big "Powered by the Hero Engine" when you start ESO. It's probably not the same version though.