Good review. I have been playing for several years now, am subbed and loving it. The things you get as FTP is really pretty decent. Like you noted, you can play soo many hours for FREE. Gear progression used to be a thing like you noted with the lvl 75 items, but like many other games, iRate or gear score took over. Same thing when they homogenized the different stats to just the basic Crit, Alacrity, Accuracy(DPS/Heal) and Absorption/shield for tanks. EQ2 did the same thing and that is one thing I did not like, there was no longer any separation between good/evil classes any longer. And all that gear looks the same. SWTOR did get rid of the gear set piece bonus's by adding them to Legenday Implants which are available at level 80 (after a mission to unlock the vendor. This allows you to switch different bonus' without lugging an assortment of armor pieces around. With the gear, yes, it is pretty generic stuff. As many other games, the green arrow lets you know it is better than what you have. If you do the planet heroics, you get a crate with Blue items rated for your level (up to level 60). SWTOR does have a good Outfitter system where you can put items you like into appearance which will be visible over your equipped items. Leveling is super easy in SWTOR, especially if you have Exploration missions enable on your map. They also give you extra credits, junk loot to sell for more credits and sometimes gear rewards. They also give the XP for your Legacy. I feel the FTP model is a good start to the game, give you enough to really enjoy it and possibly want to want to subscribe to get all the benefits. You get a ton of game play for FREE
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. This is probably THE BEST FREE MMO on the market. In my mind nothing comes close in terms of polish, content, and story for the price of $0.
I've been playing since 2015 and I think you're video is pretty good. I think you have some misconceptions about SWTOR throughout the video, but as a new player, that is understandable and valid. If you have these misconceptions, chances are a majority of new players will too; and it's a valuable perspective the SWTOR community lacks as we approach the 12 year mark. Although some of the misconceptions do get solved/addressed as a veteran, I can't invalidate your experience as a new player... as I am not a new player. It's valubale, for me at least, to see what new players think of the game (misconceptions or not) because I do not see these issues and never would consider them. Despite that, I am very glad to hear our community has treated you well and you continue to play through the DLC! I think a good tip for new players is to stick with ranged combat specs for your first couple runs (as you did with madsorc). It's a bit easier to get a grip on the combat and has less "spamming" as you say while still outputting decent damage with a low-button rotation. May the force serve you!
@unrated Why do you say obviously? He states multiple times in this video that he's going to make mistakes/misunderstand systems as a new player and is asking for feedback from vets. He seems to really enjoy SWTOR despite his criticisms and overall left a positive review of the game!
Long time player here. Found this after watching some of your Morrowind videos. Definitely enjoyed seeing your perspective as a new player. Regarding where you are in the story (or were at the point you made this video), I absolutely agree that everything up to that point was great. The story you were about to head into (Knights of the Fallen Empire) was definitely one of the most controversial parts of the game, and I don't think I would be alone in thinking that 4.0 was one of the worst expansions for the game aside from the current one. That said, there are a number of people who would instead consider it some of the best content the game has produced. It's definitely where the direction of the game shifted the most, and I'll definitely revisit that later. Looking at content creators, there used to be a lot more than there are today. Swtorista is one of the absolute best content creators for newer players, but there used to be others who were more oriented toward endgame but would help new players get to that point. Mark Biggs is a prime example. He played a lot of solo ranked PvP as well as master mode (frequentely referred to as nightmare mode or NiM) operations but also made a ton of class guides to help out new players. For combat styles, they used to be tied to what class story you played (a Bounty hunter could only be a Powertech or Mercenary), and they were mirrored so that the Republic and Empire had equivalent choices between the factions (Vanguard for the Trooper=Powertech for the Bounty Hunter, Commando=Mercenary, etc.). The only differences between mirror classes are the ability names and animations. The Madness Sorcerer you play would be the exact same as a Balance Sage. You mention story bosses and elite mobs being ridiculously easy now, and that wasn't always the case. That was another of 4.0's changes to make the game more story-oriented so that players wouldn't have to be challenged by difficult fights to experience the story. The boss fights used to actually be boss fights. You mention that the game is more of an online solo RPG rather than an MMORPG, and 4.0 is the update that shifted it to that. For progression, I agree that it isn't really meaningful while leveling, but that also means that I don't even worry about it until level 75 when there are some actual choices to be made. 6.0 (Onslaught) added tactical items as a new choice to change how builds play. Of course, there are optimizations made now for PvE and PvP, but it was an interesting idea to try to give more player choice. Some of the items completely wrecked end-game balance even into 7.0, but that's a completely different issue. When you're talking about how often new content drops for the game, I think it has slowed down significantly. We're coming up on 3 years for the current expansion, and not a lot of content has dropped for it. We get about 5 minutes of story every 6 months for plot points that have now dragged on for 5 years (almost 6 years if you count Jedi Under Siege in update 5.10), and endgame is almost as barren as 4.0. While 4.0 did not release any raids, 7.0 has one released (R-4 Anomaly), but they haven't released the highest difficulty for it. Going off of how the devs reacted on their Twitch stream a year or two ago to people asking about it (timing out or banning anyone who mentioned "NiM R-4"), it seems pretty clear they don't plan to release the highest difficulty for it any time soon. 7.2 also saw the end of ranked PvP instead of the PvP revamp that they promised, so PvP players got shafted too. Overall, it really seems like the only content they prioritize right now are graphics updates, Cartel Market items, and battle passes. To finish off, since you were asking about a "golden age" of this game, I could definitely see the entirety of 2.0 being one. 1.0 had a lack of endgame content, and 2.0 largely fixed that. It also introduced the Dread Master storyline with multiple operations, galactic starfighter, galactic strongholds, and 4v4 ranked arenas (RIP), and it was when the game went F2P. It felt like the period of time when the devs put the most effort into the game. The other period I could think of as a "golden age" would be 5.10 into early 6.0. 5.0 is where the SWTOR devs put more effort into the endgame and tried to land the plane they launched with 4.0's Fallen Empire. The operation from 5.0 is still considered the hardest in the game. 5.10 had some of the best class balance the game has had in a long time, and it was where the story tried to shift back to what made the base game great with Republic versus Empire. The devs in 6.0 took on the philosophy of letting the players choose to play however they wanted, and this was reflected a lot in gearing and missions. I thought 6.0 fell off toward the end, especially with the Mandalorian plot that continues to this day, and the devs stopped caring about a lot of other aspects. Ranked PvP became much more unmoderated with obvious wintraders and hackers going completely unnoticed. TLDR: Veteran player shares thoughts on SWTOR regarding certain points in the video. If you did read everything, thanks, and great job with the video.
Thanks for leaving a comment; always love coming back for my early projects. I can't quite remember where I left off; but I believe I completed "the first nine chapters of fallen empire". I actually quite liked it, but I was also playing with one of my best friends for most if not all of the DLC content which added a lot more enjoyment to it. Swtorista was basically my go-to for everything! Interesting that most of the big-changes came with this 4.0 update was that just before I played or was it a while ago? It's sad to see a game like SWTOR get neglected; I truly believe it's one of the best story driven MMOs out there and I wish more people gave it a chance; especially ESO players. Regardless, thank you for typing out this whole comment I enjoyed going through it :)
@@FrostbreakYT Thanks for the response! Yeah, 4.0 was the update that gave us Fallen Empire back at the end of 2015, and it's been a lot of up and down since then. The first 9 chapters are definitely the best part of Fallen Empire, and the expansion falls a lot into the same pitfalls as Morrowind's Tribunal DLC after that (backtracking through the sewers/plaza). Anyway, thanks again for reading, and looking forward to more of your videos.
I like to see this kinda of review style from your channel. Im not a huge "Skyrim Mod" guy, but these first-time playthroughs are great! As Skyrim goes, i have about 2k hours or so. You've never really experienced Skyrim until you've played through in VR.
I've been playing somewhat casually for about a year now, and what really kept me playing this game, compared to other MMOs, is a combination of the story and the monetization scheme. I've always been a fan of Star Wars, and I play this game pretty much as a standard RPG, that's just how good the story is. As far as the monetization goes, I love that you can subscribe once and get access to all the DLCs permanently, plus you get a free $5 of premium currency every month you are subbed and another $1 if you link a security key. My biggest complaint would have to be the economy, some things are insanely over priced and the credit caps definitely need to be changed or removed entirely.
One guy took like 2 hours out of his day to teach me how to do everything and gave me some awesome cosmetics. Murk_EYE his name was. Really awesome and loyal community!
7:33 all those classes are shared between force and non-force users. And they are mirrored for the Rep and Emp. It sounds confusing but you can have the same combat class for the Jedi Knight and the Jedi counselor. The only difference is the storyline
I'm sure the comments have covered it over the time since you posted this video but the combat specializations are 4 combat base archetypes available to each non jedi/sith classes and 2 base jedi/sith archetypes available for each jedi/sith classes. Used to be: Bounty Hunter could do Mercenary or Powertech Imperial Agent could do Sniper or Operative Trooper could do Commando or Vanguard Smuggler could do Gunslinger or Scoundrel They changed the game to allow all 4 of those base Origin Stories to choose from any of those 8 options, instead of limited it to only the class specific 2 options. And the Jedi/Sith ones are the options between the spell caster/staff dps 1handed/dual wield options for their respective jedi/sith Origins.
I don't know chief, you're not really selling me on the game beyond it being a single player experience. Used to play SWOTOR around the time the game came out, but that was before I really understood gaming. Think I only got to level 41 or something while the level cap was still like 50, then played around in four starter zones and two capitals for some time, as well as getting one other character to like level 30 maybe (of the opposite faction). Tried the game again more recently but couldn't really get into it. A former friend also got me into Archage, which I tried for a while. Not sure I finished the race/class story, although I think I got close. Tried some WoW although the leveling grind, and the lackluster early game experience put me off at just level 11 I think. My former friend also got me into ESO, where I actually reached endgame back during the Elswyer chapter, before my former friend quit ESO, killing much of my excitement for the game. Recently returned to the game, and it's quite okay. The F2P experience sounds a lot better, since there is a lot less restrictions, the only annoyance is really not having access to the crafting bag. Although, ESO+ does offer a lot of value in my opinion. Access to all DLC content except the current chapter and three of the classes, but you get a free crowns with ESO+ which are enough to buy any one class, and you can save up a decent amount to get the most worthwhile things in the Crown Store (there's not many honestly). Undoubtedly my perceptions and opinions are biased by my different interactions with the games in question.
Honestly the best mmo and also single player story game ever made. If only there was a way to bring it to consoles as with it would easily become the number 1 mmo on the market, which I would have to give to eso for that reason yes there are other mmo’s on console but most are bad graphically, gameplay or overall performance or don’t even have servers for each continent making the game unplayable in certain countries. Swtor dosen’t have any of these issues so I just wish it was in console.
Weapons are absolutely not cosmetic in ESO whatsoever. There's a massive difference from a 2h sword to dual-wield; each with different DPS, Abilities, and Passives.
Yeah I made all my money in swtor by selling crafting mats, I haven’t played in like a year and I have like over 100 bil credits in my account XD I remember going to the gtn a lot and never actually finding anything I wanted to buy… there’s been a few updates since then, maybe I should check out my account XD
Yep definitely what I would consider an Online RPG. All the "MMO" stuff is behind queues or you need to specifically look for it, hard to find other players in the overworld; even rarer that they're the same class as you doing the same mission and can help.
Good review. I have been playing for several years now, am subbed and loving it. The things you get as FTP is really pretty decent. Like you noted, you can play soo many hours for FREE.
Gear progression used to be a thing like you noted with the lvl 75 items, but like many other games, iRate or gear score took over. Same thing when they homogenized the different stats to just the basic Crit, Alacrity, Accuracy(DPS/Heal) and Absorption/shield for tanks. EQ2 did the same thing and that is one thing I did not like, there was no longer any separation between good/evil classes any longer. And all that gear looks the same. SWTOR did get rid of the gear set piece bonus's by adding them to Legenday Implants which are available at level 80 (after a mission to unlock the vendor. This allows you to switch different bonus' without lugging an assortment of armor pieces around.
With the gear, yes, it is pretty generic stuff. As many other games, the green arrow lets you know it is better than what you have. If you do the planet heroics, you get a crate with Blue items rated for your level (up to level 60). SWTOR does have a good Outfitter system where you can put items you like into appearance which will be visible over your equipped items.
Leveling is super easy in SWTOR, especially if you have Exploration missions enable on your map. They also give you extra credits, junk loot to sell for more credits and sometimes gear rewards. They also give the XP for your Legacy.
I feel the FTP model is a good start to the game, give you enough to really enjoy it and possibly want to want to subscribe to get all the benefits. You get a ton of game play for FREE
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. This is probably THE BEST FREE MMO on the market. In my mind nothing comes close in terms of polish, content, and story for the price of $0.
here from eso online video
Hope you enjoyed it!
I've been playing since 2015 and I think you're video is pretty good. I think you have some misconceptions about SWTOR throughout the video, but as a new player, that is understandable and valid. If you have these misconceptions, chances are a majority of new players will too; and it's a valuable perspective the SWTOR community lacks as we approach the 12 year mark.
Although some of the misconceptions do get solved/addressed as a veteran, I can't invalidate your experience as a new player... as I am not a new player. It's valubale, for me at least, to see what new players think of the game (misconceptions or not) because I do not see these issues and never would consider them.
Despite that, I am very glad to hear our community has treated you well and you continue to play through the DLC! I think a good tip for new players is to stick with ranged combat specs for your first couple runs (as you did with madsorc). It's a bit easier to get a grip on the combat and has less "spamming" as you say while still outputting decent damage with a low-button rotation.
May the force serve you!
Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you get where I'm coming from and happy you found the video enlightening to some degree xD.
@unrated Why do you say obviously? He states multiple times in this video that he's going to make mistakes/misunderstand systems as a new player and is asking for feedback from vets. He seems to really enjoy SWTOR despite his criticisms and overall left a positive review of the game!
Long time player here. Found this after watching some of your Morrowind videos. Definitely enjoyed seeing your perspective as a new player.
Regarding where you are in the story (or were at the point you made this video), I absolutely agree that everything up to that point was great. The story you were about to head into (Knights of the Fallen Empire) was definitely one of the most controversial parts of the game, and I don't think I would be alone in thinking that 4.0 was one of the worst expansions for the game aside from the current one. That said, there are a number of people who would instead consider it some of the best content the game has produced. It's definitely where the direction of the game shifted the most, and I'll definitely revisit that later.
Looking at content creators, there used to be a lot more than there are today. Swtorista is one of the absolute best content creators for newer players, but there used to be others who were more oriented toward endgame but would help new players get to that point. Mark Biggs is a prime example. He played a lot of solo ranked PvP as well as master mode (frequentely referred to as nightmare mode or NiM) operations but also made a ton of class guides to help out new players.
For combat styles, they used to be tied to what class story you played (a Bounty hunter could only be a Powertech or Mercenary), and they were mirrored so that the Republic and Empire had equivalent choices between the factions (Vanguard for the Trooper=Powertech for the Bounty Hunter, Commando=Mercenary, etc.). The only differences between mirror classes are the ability names and animations. The Madness Sorcerer you play would be the exact same as a Balance Sage.
You mention story bosses and elite mobs being ridiculously easy now, and that wasn't always the case. That was another of 4.0's changes to make the game more story-oriented so that players wouldn't have to be challenged by difficult fights to experience the story. The boss fights used to actually be boss fights. You mention that the game is more of an online solo RPG rather than an MMORPG, and 4.0 is the update that shifted it to that.
For progression, I agree that it isn't really meaningful while leveling, but that also means that I don't even worry about it until level 75 when there are some actual choices to be made. 6.0 (Onslaught) added tactical items as a new choice to change how builds play. Of course, there are optimizations made now for PvE and PvP, but it was an interesting idea to try to give more player choice. Some of the items completely wrecked end-game balance even into 7.0, but that's a completely different issue.
When you're talking about how often new content drops for the game, I think it has slowed down significantly. We're coming up on 3 years for the current expansion, and not a lot of content has dropped for it. We get about 5 minutes of story every 6 months for plot points that have now dragged on for 5 years (almost 6 years if you count Jedi Under Siege in update 5.10), and endgame is almost as barren as 4.0. While 4.0 did not release any raids, 7.0 has one released (R-4 Anomaly), but they haven't released the highest difficulty for it. Going off of how the devs reacted on their Twitch stream a year or two ago to people asking about it (timing out or banning anyone who mentioned "NiM R-4"), it seems pretty clear they don't plan to release the highest difficulty for it any time soon. 7.2 also saw the end of ranked PvP instead of the PvP revamp that they promised, so PvP players got shafted too. Overall, it really seems like the only content they prioritize right now are graphics updates, Cartel Market items, and battle passes.
To finish off, since you were asking about a "golden age" of this game, I could definitely see the entirety of 2.0 being one. 1.0 had a lack of endgame content, and 2.0 largely fixed that. It also introduced the Dread Master storyline with multiple operations, galactic starfighter, galactic strongholds, and 4v4 ranked arenas (RIP), and it was when the game went F2P. It felt like the period of time when the devs put the most effort into the game. The other period I could think of as a "golden age" would be 5.10 into early 6.0. 5.0 is where the SWTOR devs put more effort into the endgame and tried to land the plane they launched with 4.0's Fallen Empire. The operation from 5.0 is still considered the hardest in the game. 5.10 had some of the best class balance the game has had in a long time, and it was where the story tried to shift back to what made the base game great with Republic versus Empire. The devs in 6.0 took on the philosophy of letting the players choose to play however they wanted, and this was reflected a lot in gearing and missions. I thought 6.0 fell off toward the end, especially with the Mandalorian plot that continues to this day, and the devs stopped caring about a lot of other aspects. Ranked PvP became much more unmoderated with obvious wintraders and hackers going completely unnoticed.
TLDR: Veteran player shares thoughts on SWTOR regarding certain points in the video.
If you did read everything, thanks, and great job with the video.
Thanks for leaving a comment; always love coming back for my early projects. I can't quite remember where I left off; but I believe I completed "the first nine chapters of fallen empire". I actually quite liked it, but I was also playing with one of my best friends for most if not all of the DLC content which added a lot more enjoyment to it. Swtorista was basically my go-to for everything! Interesting that most of the big-changes came with this 4.0 update was that just before I played or was it a while ago? It's sad to see a game like SWTOR get neglected; I truly believe it's one of the best story driven MMOs out there and I wish more people gave it a chance; especially ESO players. Regardless, thank you for typing out this whole comment I enjoyed going through it :)
@@FrostbreakYT Thanks for the response! Yeah, 4.0 was the update that gave us Fallen Empire back at the end of 2015, and it's been a lot of up and down since then. The first 9 chapters are definitely the best part of Fallen Empire, and the expansion falls a lot into the same pitfalls as Morrowind's Tribunal DLC after that (backtracking through the sewers/plaza).
Anyway, thanks again for reading, and looking forward to more of your videos.
Great video, and honest review, You deserve more views!
I got them, just on other video ;)
I like to see this kinda of review style from your channel. Im not a huge "Skyrim Mod" guy, but these first-time playthroughs are great! As Skyrim goes, i have about 2k hours or so. You've never really experienced Skyrim until you've played through in VR.
I've been playing somewhat casually for about a year now, and what really kept me playing this game, compared to other MMOs, is a combination of the story and the monetization scheme. I've always been a fan of Star Wars, and I play this game pretty much as a standard RPG, that's just how good the story is. As far as the monetization goes, I love that you can subscribe once and get access to all the DLCs permanently, plus you get a free $5 of premium currency every month you are subbed and another $1 if you link a security key.
My biggest complaint would have to be the economy, some things are insanely over priced and the credit caps definitely need to be changed or removed entirely.
FWIW, I'm one of *those* people who is not a star wars fan (and hasn't seen most of the films) but I've still been enjoying SWTOR :)
Nice! I found I was able to enjoy it quite a bit more due to loving the universe :)
I love the SWTOR playerbase so so much, it's one of my favorite playerbases (and for an MMO? it's actually a GOOD community)
One guy took like 2 hours out of his day to teach me how to do everything and gave me some awesome cosmetics. Murk_EYE his name was. Really awesome and loyal community!
@@FrostbreakYT that's the SWTOR I know and love!
7:33 all those classes are shared between force and non-force users. And they are mirrored for the Rep and Emp.
It sounds confusing but you can have the same combat class for the Jedi Knight and the Jedi counselor. The only difference is the storyline
When did this change?
I remember Knight and Counselor being very different.
@@Jo-Heike the combat is the same, the storylines are different
I'm sure the comments have covered it over the time since you posted this video but the combat specializations are 4 combat base archetypes available to each non jedi/sith classes and 2 base jedi/sith archetypes available for each jedi/sith classes.
Used to be:
Bounty Hunter could do Mercenary or Powertech
Imperial Agent could do Sniper or Operative
Trooper could do Commando or Vanguard
Smuggler could do Gunslinger or Scoundrel
They changed the game to allow all 4 of those base Origin Stories to choose from any of those 8 options, instead of limited it to only the class specific 2 options. And the Jedi/Sith ones are the options between the spell caster/staff dps 1handed/dual wield options for their respective jedi/sith Origins.
I watched your ESO video and was like damn i wish he would make a video about swtor and somehow u do!
Great game!
I don't know chief, you're not really selling me on the game beyond it being a single player experience.
Used to play SWOTOR around the time the game came out, but that was before I really understood gaming. Think I only got to level 41 or something while the level cap was still like 50, then played around in four starter zones and two capitals for some time, as well as getting one other character to like level 30 maybe (of the opposite faction). Tried the game again more recently but couldn't really get into it.
A former friend also got me into Archage, which I tried for a while. Not sure I finished the race/class story, although I think I got close. Tried some WoW although the leveling grind, and the lackluster early game experience put me off at just level 11 I think.
My former friend also got me into ESO, where I actually reached endgame back during the Elswyer chapter, before my former friend quit ESO, killing much of my excitement for the game. Recently returned to the game, and it's quite okay. The F2P experience sounds a lot better, since there is a lot less restrictions, the only annoyance is really not having access to the crafting bag. Although, ESO+ does offer a lot of value in my opinion. Access to all DLC content except the current chapter and three of the classes, but you get a free crowns with ESO+ which are enough to buy any one class, and you can save up a decent amount to get the most worthwhile things in the Crown Store (there's not many honestly).
Undoubtedly my perceptions and opinions are biased by my different interactions with the games in question.
Honestly the best mmo and also single player story game ever made. If only there was a way to bring it to consoles as with it would easily become the number 1 mmo on the market, which I would have to give to eso for that reason yes there are other mmo’s on console but most are bad graphically, gameplay or overall performance or don’t even have servers for each continent making the game unplayable in certain countries. Swtor dosen’t have any of these issues so I just wish it was in console.
Huge pro to SWTOR (like ESO) you can play them both on the steam deck!
Perfect game would be SWTOR storylines, ESO combat with WildStar's difficulty
11:11 isnt it cosmetic in eso as well?
Weapons are absolutely not cosmetic in ESO whatsoever. There's a massive difference from a 2h sword to dual-wield; each with different DPS, Abilities, and Passives.
Yeah I made all my money in swtor by selling crafting mats, I haven’t played in like a year and I have like over 100 bil credits in my account XD I remember going to the gtn a lot and never actually finding anything I wanted to buy… there’s been a few updates since then, maybe I should check out my account XD
For me this game is a good solo story game, but outside of that, it feels like there is nothing to stick around for, especially with the wierd combat
Yep definitely what I would consider an Online RPG. All the "MMO" stuff is behind queues or you need to specifically look for it, hard to find other players in the overworld; even rarer that they're the same class as you doing the same mission and can help.