Wednesday 19 December 2012

SWTOR F2P, I don't have a bad feeling about this

After I post about the f2p system in SWTOR, about it's up and low, I still went and give it go (I would anyways). So what is my final verdict?


Well, although it's far from perfect, I would say it's good enough (and I did said this before) for a player to try the game, and play the class stories. I've been playing a while over at my level 40 Sith Inquisitor and I couldn't find anything that would hinder my progress. The only limitation I could find was that, you couldn't pick some rewards (locked boxes) and the experience and gold would be lower then the normal. Also you wouldn't gain rested experience. For the experience, I would just buy a minor experience boost over the Auction House, which would give me an extra bonus of 25% for an hour. For the rest not much can be done, I guess.

Playing it, didn't prove anything different from what I did when I was a subscriber. Better yet, back at the time there wasn't any flash point finder, and even if as a f2p player we are only entitled to 3 flash points, it's better. I bet many will do more flash points while leveling as f2p then me when I first leveled my Bounty Hunter as a subscriber. No quests have access locked, every planet is 100% open to anyone who plays it and so are class quests. 

PVP. Well, if you plan doing much PVP while leveling, unless you do it on any of the planets, you will only be able to join 5 war zones a week. For me it's enough, I only plan doing the daily quest for the war zones, which requires to do 2 war zones a day. If you happen to get lucky and win the war zone, then you get a credit of 2 towards the quest. So in a perfect week you could do that quest 5 times. For me it's enough, but then again I'm not a PVP player. Also you gain decent amount of experience and credits from war zones.

The space missions, is also another way of leveling and do a few credits. It's just not that great in my opinion. I still hope that one day Bioware scraps this and gets a proper space content to the game. Star Wars Galaxies space was far far superior to what SWTOR offers us. But, as I said, it's another form of experience players can use. The problem is that, like the flash points and the war zones, you are only limited to 3 a week, which compared to the other two is really short. But then again, I doubt many people well bother with this side content of the game. I for once barely do these. I rather be doing quests and following my class questline.

Also, a small note for crafting or crew skills. While it's not the most exciting system in most of the MMORPG I played, its functional. The only issue, is that as a subscriber, the player is entitled to 3 crew skills while a f2p can only have 2. Can be a bit of a hinder, if you really plan on leveling a crew skill for the intent of crafting gear, because most of them are dependent on 2 material gathering crew skill. Maybe with an alt players can work around the problem. But again, if a player wants to just check stories and such, crafting wont be much of a concern. In any case, this small picture will show you the crew skills dependencies.


All these activities, are available to the f2p, besides the obvious limitations. I could at any moment buy from the shop a week pass, to either PVP or flash points, but I don't think it's worth the money for it. Playing as it is, is good enough. There are some options on shop to unlock some stuff, depends really on how much anyone want to invest. I do have a level 50 in game, and so far the only thing I bought, was the unlock for the recent content they had, Section X. And I bought it using game credits, because most of the store items can be sold in the Auction House. Again this is not mandatory, because this is past over the class stories. By the time someone finishes the class story, he is level 50 and should have made a decision on either subscribe the game or move on.

Undoubtedly, if anyone wants to play this game just to go through the main story line for each class or check every planet, f2p is more than enough. I don't agree with most naysayers saying the f2p is unplayable. It's not. Might be at cap level, when someone wants to do a few flash points or join operations, or even go PVP which is one of the main activities in the game. Otherwise, for enjoying a Star Wars adventure, the f2p option is good enough. I still think if Bioware/EA, when first released the game would have made something like, making the class stories into some single player portion of the game, without the need for subscription, the game would have been far better received. Players that would subscribe, would be entitled to the full online activities of the game, while others would just enjoy the single player side of it. Could have been interesting.

No comments: