The sky has not fallen (yet)

[Fordel]

I think just about every interrupt/stun/daze that can be used from stealth is 10 meters or less.


Sorc/Sages can spec to make their 8 sec mez instant and THAT is 30 meters, but they don't stealth. I've more then once capped a node with it though, I'll open with my 4 second stun, and start capping the node. The solo defender PANICS and uses their CC break to interrupt me, then I mez them and cap the node while they cry at their own impotence.

[Zetor]

Using your CC breaker without a full resolve bar has ALWAYS been a bad idea.

Do roots still ignore resolve, btw?


e: also, DOTs interrupting caps was pretty much clownshoes (my ungeared sage could keep a zerg of 5+ from capping a turret for an entire rez wave's worth of time). Heard they changed that, though.

[Fordel]

Roots ignore resolve, Dot's do not interrupt anymore.

[koro]

Of course there's other problems, like if you happen to be up against an AoE-stacked team on, say, Voidstar. More than once have I seen the attackers just completely shut down at the first objective for the duration of the entire match solely because the defending team had the most Mercenaries and Sorcerers to spam Sweeping Blasters, Death From Above, and Force Storm with to cancel bomb attempts.

[Falconeer]

"Action denial" is not what bothers me. As I said, it's mostly the duration. 8 seconds in a fast paced game is in my opinion horrible, especially for certain classes and especially at a certain level of playing. It's a matter of taste after all, but I am very happy that the makers of Guild Wars 2 seem to agree with me.

[Amaron]

It's a matter of taste after all, but I am very happy that the makers of Guild Wars 2 seem to agree with me.

GW1 monk healing was an entire order of magnitude more annoying than any CC in SWTOR.  Couldn't really grasp how that's going in GW2 but I'll take 8 second mez's over that crap any day.

[Lantyssa]

That's probably why he said GW2 and not GW1.

[Draegan]

How long would it take to go from 40-50 using PVP?  I'd like to come back to play but fuck actually doing the story and PVE shit in this game.  I got so tired of my OP's story line.

[Nebu]

How long would it take to go from 40-50 using PVP?  I'd like to come back to play but fuck actually doing the story and PVE shit in this game.  I got so tired of my OP's story line.

It takes quite a while even if the queues are quick.  I tried this with my sorc and just couldn't hang in there. 

[Minvaren]

There are supposed to be perks to level faster via warzones and class storylines in 1.3, I think, but each of those categories is 275K credits - per character - from what I've read.   

[Nebu]

If I could level at a reasonable pace through pvp only, I'd resub.  For all of its faults, the pvp in SWTOR was pretty fun. 

[Amaron]

How long would it take to go from 40-50 using PVP?  I'd like to come back to play but fuck actually doing the story and PVE shit in this game.  I got so tired of my OP's story line.

It takes a while but on the plus side after you get to 40 valor you can start converting your WZ tokens towards War Hero gear.  I think the cap on rated tokens is 4k so that's basically 14,000 warzone tokens you can save towards buying gear at 50.

I'd still wait till the patch though.

[Sir T]

Is the game worth buying as an effective single player game to play for a month? I'm seeing it dropping in price pretty drastically and was thinking of picking it up just for the single player content.

[Nebu]

Is the game worth buying as an effective single player game to play for a month? I'm seeing it dropping in price pretty drastically and was thinking of picking it up just for the single player content.

If you like MMO's and their classic quest grind, then yes.  If you're burned out on diku WoW clones, then I'd pass.

[Sir T]

Fair enough, My money is safe.

[Nebu]

Fair enough, My money is safe.

The story quests are fun and immersive.  The problem is that you have to do so many 'fetch this' and 'kill x of that' quests beyond the story that the story alone can't carry the game.  I enjoyed the pve enough to level 4 toons to the level cap, but I entertained myself with PvP to avoid the mindless quest grind.

It's not a bad game.

[Draegan]

It's pretty much stock DIKU all the way through.  I would say most of the stories are terrible, but some of them are good like the Operative.  The only interesting part of the game is having a Companion.

[caladein]

I think if you enjoy group mechanics, companions are a pretty big addition to the traditional formula.  The combat isn't as crisp or as deep as WoW on its face, but because the most basic unit is a 2-character team you're fighting a variety of encounter types and get to use all your abilities in the normal course of play.

It's enough to counteract my usual strong distaste for leveling by myself, so much so that my BH was my first character ever, going back to Asheron's Call, to cap almost entirely through solo play.  (Not so much by choice mind you .)  Part of that is the story stuff in general, I didn't much care for BH that much, but I got to "play" that character to a really fulfilling level which kept me trundling along.

[Simond]

I think if you enjoy group mechanics, companions are a pretty big addition to the traditional formula.

Psst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest:_Seeds_of_Destruction

 

[Zetor]

I think if you enjoy group mechanics, companions are a pretty big addition to the traditional formula.

Psst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars_Nightfall

 

Fixed a minor typo in your post. 

[Tannhauser]

I think if you enjoy group mechanics, companions are a pretty big addition to the traditional formula.  The combat isn't as crisp or as deep as WoW on its face, but because the most basic unit is a 2-character team you're fighting a variety of encounter types and get to use all your abilities in the normal course of play.

It's enough to counteract my usual strong distaste for leveling by myself, so much so that my BH was my first character ever, going back to Asheron's Call, to cap almost entirely through solo play.  (Not so much by choice mind you .)  Part of that is the story stuff in general, I didn't much care for BH that much, but I got to "play" that character to a really fulfilling level which kept me trundling along.

Yeah, companions are one of the game's strengths.  They have their story, craft for you and of course accompany you on your adventures.  My only gripe is that they seem understrength; poor Blizz wasn't that great a tank.  Mako had lousy dps. 

I'd like to see them flesh out the areas they are strongest, space, crafting, companions and (I hear) pvp.  If they had free travel between systems and a sandboxy galaxy I'd come running back.  But that's a tall order I realize, maybe make more and different space missions like now.  Focus the game on what SWTOR can offer other MMO's cant.

[Amaron]

I felt like companions were the biggest let down.  My "Is it a Bioware game?" check list pretty much starts with companion banter.  Instead we got millions of dollars worth of voice acted fetch quests.

[Simond]

I think if you enjoy group mechanics, companions are a pretty big addition to the traditional formula.

Psst.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars_Nightfall

 

Fixed a minor typo in your post. 

Guild Wars wasn't a real MMO.

(waves red flag in front of bull)

[Fordel]

My biggest issue with companions, is they are this integral part of your gameplay 1-49. Then, outside of doing a few daily quests, once you hit 50 they transform into this:



The convo's stop, the rep meter feedback stops, the relevance on your combat stops. They're just crafting slots at 50.

[Minvaren]

(hacks into Fordel's PC and turns on AA)

[koro]

What armor is that on your Dorne? I want it. 

[Fordel]

The Chestpiece is the republic containment officer one, but I intend to replace it with the orange Columni one once I get it. Same model, but orange/white color scheme. The Supercommando Columni has a similar brown/orange color if you want that one specifically.

The helmet came off a planet comm/specialty vendor, but God help me if I can remember which planet now, I can check the name when I log in later. Maybe Belsavis?

The Rest is something like TH-15 Combat Medic custom armor, from the AH. There's a bunch of interchangeable orange colored custom trooper armor, all with TH-15 or RD-16 or some other combo of letters and numbers.

[Amaron]

What armor is that on your Dorne? I want it.  

The chest piece is the PvE chest you can get from hard modes or the beginner raid.  I think they also had it as a social armor reward for the rakghoul plague event.  I think the rakata color scheme is much nicer though.

[caladein]

The difference between GW and SWTOR for me when it comes to companions is that GW you're building decks in parallel where SWTOR gives you a "feature complete" character and any one of five half characters on top of it and then balances around that unit.  I can't speak to EQ at all.

It's also not the game with the best group mechanics (read: LotRO) but you get to use them all the time so that counts for a lot.

[Mattemeo]

I think companions are ok. If I could have chosen what my companions could do, I'd consider them a whole lot better. The simple truth is half my characters have to hang around with companions they don't particularly like most of the time. I don't feel compelled to romance Kira on my JK Sentinel because he simply never quests with her. My Medic specced Imperial Agent cannot stand Kaliyo but won't have an alternative till the early 30s. And some classes end up with a main-stay companion so early on it's hard to imagine using anyone else - Mako, for example. It's a damn shame they took the choices away from us; the game would have been so much more unique.

[Kageru]

I dislike pet classes. Having my character balance being dependent on playing nursemaid to a bot is not my idea of fun.

[Riggswolfe]

I dislike pet classes. Having my character balance being dependent on playing nursemaid to a bot is not my idea of fun.

It's not like playing a pet class which I don't like either. For the most part the companions do their own thing and don't need a nursemaid.

That said I finally broke down and cancelled. All my friends did as did most of the people I'd met and grouped with in-game.

[Fordel]

The only time it would be like a traditional pet class, would be if you went full heal spec on something. Then a lot of your damage output and solo viability is tied up in how effective your companion is. Heal specs are also the ones which get the most use out of the variety of companions.


Like my Tank Spec Trooper, he is paired with Elara (the heal companion for troopers) and uses almost nothing else 98% of the time. I don't manage her at all, outside of tweaking how much time I want her casting heals vs. doing her lackluster DPS. Like if I am just doing regular dailies, I put her in DPS stance and turn off her cast time heal, which nearly doubles her damage done and noticeably increases my kill speed. When I want to go tackle a heroic 2, I put her back in heal stance and turn her cast time heal back on.

This is like 3 seconds of management before I start a quest series.


The only other thing I do is ctrl+1 so she attacks my target if she isn't by default. She usually is though.



It's almost nothing like a hunter/warlock or whatever your pet class of choice is.

[Lakov_Sanite]

The only time it would be like a traditional pet class, would be if you went full heal spec on something. Then a lot of your damage output and solo viability is tied up in how effective your companion is. Heal specs are also the ones which get the most use out of the variety of companions.

I haven't come back here cause kicking dead horses is only so much fun but this statement is absolute bullshit.  Character balance is completely tied to companions and soloing without your pet/companion is nearly impossible, they are absolutely necessary for solo content which is balanced around having them and therefore are pets in the traditional mmo sense.

[Fordel]

In my experience, a traditional MMO pet class means the pet is dishing out significant chunks of your damage and/or soaking up enemy damage for you. With the player having to manage the pet, making sure it grabs any adds and uses it's abilities semi-intelligently. IE: your Hunters and Warlocks.



This is not the case in TOR unless you go heal spec. It's just not the same playstyle at all.