Tilting at Pixelated Windmills: Thoughts on SWTOR 4.0 and 4 Years of Playing the SWTOR MMO

Load screen for SWTOR 4.0 Knights of the Fallen Empire

It has been just over 4 years since November 2011 when I began playing the beta release of the MMO Star Wars the Old Republic. Bioware has been actively updating the game and recently released version 4.0 Knights of the Fallen Empire which extends gameplay to level 65. Players can continue using their current characters and begin the new content when they get to about level 60 or they can shortcut right to level 60 by creating a new character that begins at level 60. A level 60 character begun in that way starts with some 60 level unmodifiable gear that is fortunately legacy equipment and so can also be used by other characters of that player on that server as long as they are in the same legacy (why wouldn't they be?) and are level 60.

Sith Lord Siskin'lar contemplates the Universe

Siskin'lar Faces Challenges with Two New Friends?

Along with the new content which basically is designed for solo players to continue with an epic conquest or defense of the galaxy storyline (unfortunately the same storyline for every class, not unique class stories as there are for levels 1-60) there were also many changes made that affect all SWTOR players, primarily in an effort to further simplify the game and lessen the need for playing in groups. Not all of these changes have been welcomed by long time players and PvP players are especially disappointed, thus continuing the decline in the number of active PvP players.

The most significant changes made in 4.0 affect the unique class attributes and the companions. In my earlier blog posts on this I described the class system. In short each class had a key attribute that was most important to them for both offense and defense, so it was important to select gear for your character and his/her companions that matched the key attribute for their class: for Consulars and Inquisitors that attribute was called Willpower; for Knights and Warriors the attribute was Strength; for Smugglers and Agents the attribute was Cunning; and for Troopers and Bounty Hunters the attribute was Aim. Many objects in the game were designed around these key attributes, with drops, crafted items, special items like the datacrons, and vendor items all being affected by them. With 4.0 all four attributes were replaced with a single common key attribute named "Mastery". Because all the release did is change all references to Willpower, Strength, Cunning, and Aim to Mastery there are many duplicated vendor and crafted items in the game now and some rewards also make little sense. Honestly I'm not sure why this was done other than to make it simpler for new players at the cost of removing a lot of uniqueness and player choices (like, for example, a choice of spending limited credits on a Willpower based item for my Consular or an Aim based item for his companion; or the choice of whether to use limited craft resources to craft items for one attribute or another.)

The new Combat Support Droid in a Heroic mission

The second big change was to allow solo players to play most heroic missions, which typically required a group of players before. Now a combat support droid will be available to assist your player in the heroics and there are also shortcuts on each planet to get right to the heroics. This seems to be an aid for people who enjoy farming heroics for credits and gear. There are still missions I have found though that mandate multiple players to participate, so this change does not affect all missions, but certainly most of them.

The third big change was to alter companions so that their statistics are all the same and are no longer affected by the gear that they have equipped. All companions can now be shifted among the standard Healer, Damage (DPS), and Tank play styles and so players no longer need to accommodate the proscribed play style of the companions they have. While this does allow some new choices for play style for the player character, (some really bad ones since the player class abilities remain designed for certain play styles) it removes most differences between companions. The companions still have their own unique storylines appearances, but otherwise they are completely replaceable. Because the statistics of gear is no longer significant for companions you can equip them in anything their class allows them to wear and you do not have to be concerned that the gear is better or worse for statistics. This opens the door to more variety for companion appearance because good looking items with low statistics that were typically just sold to vendors can now be used on companions instead with no adverse affect.

Jedi Landrus Wields the Force

This actually seems like a good thing and a Bioware developer stated that more variety was something they wanted to encourage with this change. However, oddly enough, the new group of companions that are introduced as part of the 60+ KotFE storyline are exempt from all of this variety because you cannot change their appearance at all. They look exactly the same for everyone and the only item you can equip for them is their primary weapon. This seems like a very odd decision to make considering what they did to the class-based pre-level 60 companions.

The last big change I will talk about is the level synchronization that is now done on every pre-level 60 planet. This means that players that are higher level than a planet is designed for will find themselves significantly reduced in hit points and damage capability when they are visiting. This prevents high level characters from going back to low level planets and wiping everything out, which is a good thing, but also means that if you are going back to a planet to do a mission you have to deal with local creatures fighting you again rather than ignoring you because of your high level, and this is a time waster and nets you almost nothing because their drops will be items that are too low for you to care about and worth little. It would have been better I think if they had made this leveling restricted to only when a player is not on a speeder. That way you could travel the planet quickly without being interrupted by local creatures unless you wanted to dismount and fight them for some reason.

Golfing in the Fallen Empire

Fore!

I continue to enjoy the game and believe that even as a subscriber it has been entertaining enough to be well worth my investment as a subscriber. However I do think that the changes they have been making, other than reducing group requirements, have not really been a good match for my interests.

Cruising Aldaraan

Imperial Agent Dakton Taking Names

Imperial Agent Dakton in an alternate costume

Below are several of my over 40 characters, representing all 8 classes and several of the playable races.

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