For me, it's the opposite - I can't stand the melee in this game. The lack of auto-movement means I have to contort my hand all over the place to move into position for an attack, then actually execute the attack. It would be much nicer if they made it so that the character moves into attack range automatically when you use a skill. The ranged characters were a lot easier to deal with because of this, just so long as you don't blast enemies out of range by accident.

 

In what MMO does this kind of "play for me" function exist? Half of being a melee class (and ranged class once you get to more complicated mechanics) is movement and positioning.

Sounds like you're big on tank and spank content.

 

Only melee I played a fair bit was Jedi Knight, which was quite enjoyable once you got used to the fairly limited rage mechanic.

Ranged Force User (Inquisitor) was straight forward and enjoyable.

Ranged non cover was quite fun, Trooper storyline ended up being a disappointment due to personal reasons.

Ranged cover, Imperial Agent. Storyline was almost on par with Inquisitor in my opinion, absolutely brilliant characterization. Cover system was a bust though. Unenjoyable through and through, clunky, disappointment and moronic. I mean seriously? Yeah you can't really take cover until you target an enemy, then you need to run around the pack until you find a cover that works and is in range in order to use most if not all of your abilities. Rinse and repeat for every, goddamn, pack, of mobs. The only thing that made me finish the starting planet was that it was the only type of class I hadn't played past the starter planet and the story.

 

Every MMO I've played (granted, none of them big names like WoW) has had this feature. I know how ranged classes can use movement (i.e. kiting bosses), but unless you have enhanced movement speed, it does nothing for melee. Where you hit someone (i.e. front/back, leg/head) doesn't make a difference, and the range on melee weapons is large enough that you can't really use the environment to funnel enemies in towards you, so as far as I can tell, positioning means nothing. Unless the Agent's sneak skill is affected by the normal single-player rpg parameters I guess.

Yes, it does make the game a bit easier, but I think it's a big stretch to call it a "play-for-me" function. I've played games where you could set up macros to the point where you could basically push one button and go for hours without touching the keyboard again. THAT is a play-for-me function. I don't see why it's such a big deal to make it so you don't have to run right up next to your enemy before you can hit the attack button.

 

The agent's gets a directional defence bonus when they are in cover. It's pretty easy to get everybody infront of you. Also, after you get your advanced class(not sure about operative, but for sniper anyways). You can take cover anywhere and get a deployable shield.

What is the story like for the republic bounty hunter and agent mirror classes?

 

Btw for anyone interested, I've started up a guild, looking for members. I haven't really set anything up yet since I can't do guild pre-deployment with four members who have pre-ordered. If you wanna join link is there.

 

I still detest the cover mechanic, did not like it at all. Just means I probably wont finish the Agent storyline unfortunately.

Didn't play the smuggler(agent) but the Trooper(bh) story is excellent. My only gripe is

Spoiler

that I wanted to defect with the rest of my squad to the Empire. Pains of being a military and relating to my own squad interaction I suppose

Meh, l2 EU guild Riley

 

Do anyone know if there is a way to skip the little movies that jump up every time you do something related to a quest? My leveling speed increased alot when I discovered I could skip most of them when I press spacebar but it would be much easier to just jump straight to the part where I have to accept or decline.

 

If you go Agent, pick Operative as your advanced class. They focus less on cover and more on close combat, or healing. Makes things tolerable, IMO. I agree in that the cover mechanic is very very clunky.

 

Considering that Bioware spent millions and millions voicing literally thousands of hours of quests, animating them, writing stories for them, developing them..

Considering that this game is supposed to introduce story as the 'new fourth pillar' of MMOs...

Considering that the Story and Voicing are two of (if not THE) largest selling points besides, you know, Star Wars...

Why the HELL would you want to skip all the story? To get to max level faster?

How plebeian.

There is an option to auto-skip the voicing, I believe, in the preferences, and just skip to the text, but I do not believe there is a way to entirely skip the conversations. Since a lot of the way a quest turns out, and ALL of your dark/light side points come from decisions made in said conversations....

-Headshake-

No, I doubt there is, or that there ever will be.

 

It's missing the point of playing any Bioware game, why would you do that? Figure it out yourself if you plan on replaying WoW in space. D:

 

Whilst completely agreeing with WalkingDisaster, pressing escape skips the cutscenes iirc. Never tried it as it's the main reason I want to play the game.

Edit; according to swtor.com spacebar is apparantly used to skip. Came across it as an accident and thought I'd mention it.

 

escape pulls you out of it, but it 'resets' it. So if you accidentally click the wrong story choice, you can hit esc and redo the conversation.

Like in the JK starting quest line you can choose to destroy weapons or give them to some twilek chick. Once the convo ends it locks the story in place for one decision or another (ie take weapons or destroy them), but if you hit esc you can effectively change your answer.

 

After level 15 or so, side quests get so dull, so I quit them altogether.

 

Is that a viable leveling style doing only quests or do you need to fill up with pvp and/or flashpoint action to supplement the Main Quest Arc experiece gain?

 

You would need to supplement. You start to fall behind pretty rapidly. Like you'll be level 32 and story quests will be 36.

 

That's not so bad though. Flashpoints and other such things are pretty good about supplementing the xp.

 

I could actually see myself skipping the most 'demeaning' quests for my Inquisitor and supplement it with Flashpoint / PvP play. As long as I don't end up running all flashpoints a ridiculous amount of times. I'm torn between wanting to experience all the content available, just because I enjoy the whole conversation aspect of it and the annoying feeling when you're playing a big badass Sith and run around doing favours to nobodies for a few credits.

Did anyone take the time to try out pvp during the weekend? And in that case, how does it play out in terms of balance between melee, ranged, stealth, tanks and healers etc? Based on what I've heard ranged classes have the distinct advantage atm, with stealth melee being a wild-card based on opponents awareness and reaction time?

 

It's a tough call to make as the lag in pvp was unbearable. Talking 1-2 second response times here, so ranged had a big advantage there. I do like how you get money for PVP and decent experience also.

I think there was some problem with the PVP vendors though, for example at the fleet station there was 11 total vendors with only 6 of them selling the same items.

 

See, I didn't have much in the way of lag issues, personally, either in PvP or PvE.

Ranged have a definite advantage at the moment. They need to tone down ranged damage just a bit to make them on par with melee.

For example. the Sith Sorcerer AC did quite a bit more damage than the Sith Assassin, and the SS had heals, too, which the SA did not.

I know the Sniper puts out ridiculous amounts of damage.

And as a trooper on the Republic side, things fell in swaths before me, whereas as a JK it took a bit longer.