I dove into the flight combat in SW:TOR head first. Overall, not bad, not bad at all.
The space combat in SW:TOR is not like most star wars games. Some will hate the changes, but I personally find it’s an improvement.
The big difference is how much control you have over your ship, or lack of in SW:TOR. In your traditional Star Wars flight combat game you have control over pretty much everything. Velocity, turning, rolling, targeting, firing etc etc. In SW:TOR you are on a “rail”. Those of you who have played WoW will know what I mean. Instead of full control of your ship, you are basically stuck to a given flight path. You could compare it to a roller-coaster unable to leave it’s track. What you are free to do is fire blasters / missiles, dodge anywhere on the screen (but you are limited to the screen you see, your ship will never push the view outside of what you are shown no matter how close to the edge you fly). As well as spacebar to do a barrel roll, and “control” over your shield generation (Your shields do not regen while firing your blasters, so if you are taking a lot of hits you simply stop firing to let them recharge).
I was thinking about this game compared to other Star Wars flight sim games I used to play. X-Wing, Rogue Squadron, that sort of thing. And I honestly don’t remember “enjoying” overshooting your target because your velocity was way too high. The older games also used fairly accurate physics which meant there was no instant-stopping / turning… you had to loop back around and go for another shot. It was much more flight sim rather than an action game space combat.
The resulting SW:TOR space combat is summed up in one word. Chaos. It even reminded me what I love so much about Star Wars compared to Star Trek.
- In Star Wars there are ships _everywhere_. With blaster fire coming out of each and every one of those ships. “There’s…. too many of them!” *explode*
Think of the space combat sequences of the prequels. A space fighter dodging in and out of 20 or more ships with red and green blaster fire spattering the screen with action. This is the action they try to replicate in SW:TOR (and in my opinion succeed). - In Star Trek on the other hand you usually have two ships sitting still pointed at each other, calling each other names over their ultra-HD widescreen TVs. If they do fire it’s always a 5 to 10 minute “fight” involving rerouting power to shields, pushing the reactor beyond it’s ‘limits’, and an “explosion” showing a few red shirts in a hallway during an earthquake. There is little to no action. And whether or not this is more realistic to what a real life space fight would look like, I regardless find it just plain boring compared to the chaotic action of Star Wars fights. (JJ Abrams re-envisioning was a welcomed addition to Star Trek, the space battles were significantly more action packed and reminiscent of the Star Wars battles I’ve enjoyed over the years)
My only real complaint is that it is perhaps too easy. I started late (level 24 instead of 16 or so when I earned my ship). The first two attempts at even the easiest mission resulted in my ship exploding and therefore mission failure. I immediately went to the player market and purchased all the upgrades for my ship I could. These included much faster blaster fire rate as well as adding a significant amount of HP to my ship as well as shields that reduced all incoming damage. Every mission since I’ve completed without fail. The only challenge left is getting the ‘extra hard’ bonus objectives. That said I’m told the higher level missions are not so easy. I’m looking forward to them…
In short SW:TOR’s flight combat removes the parts of space combat I dislike and enhances the parts I do. I realize this type of combat may not be for everyone, there’s probably a lot of people who actually enjoy the realistic flight simulation aspects of previous Star Wars games that I dislike so much. So they may or may not have fun in SW:TOR’s space combat. But for me, it’s a welcomed addition to this MMO.
Other Minor Updates:
In my previous post I mentioned polish and bugs. After a lot more playtime I’ve encountered more bugs than I’d like. As such I am downgrading SW:TOR’s bug/polish rating from an 8 or so to a 6. (WoW would be a 10, most valve games a 9 or 10) To be fair WoW in it’s first year would probably be an 8 and drifted upwards. It’s possible SW:TOR will do the same (hopefully).
I’ve also taken notice of one of the social aspects I left out in my original review. The game does encourage you to group. It has a social points leveling system, with rewards that require different ranks of this social meter. These points are earned by questing in a group. When you make selections for the quest dialog, the game rolls a dice to see which player’s choice will be shown on your screen. The winner earns more points than the losers, but no matter what you gain social points for this. They also took in to consideration a player’s desire to make choices, so if you choose a +50 light side response and the winning roll player chooses the +50 dark side points, you are not forced into the dark side by your group mates. You will each get your respective rewards despite what dialog / animations are chosen to be displayed. (I hope that made sense) TL;DR: The game does encourage you to group even if there is no requirement to do so.
Good read.