Everyone's actually covered all the reasons why I don't play TSW. I did enjoy the first zone, but as I fought through Egypt it all became so meh, and the end game looming on the horizon looked far too familiar.
So I'll close by saying it just isn't enough like EVE.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The main storyline has barely budged with their rediculious instancing system in place. The side stories were good, but again a lack of content updates. I feel like i have done every quest at least three times. Why keep playing after that, constant raid and dungeon instances dont cut it.
O lets not forget the crap tastic crafting system. I want to play this game so badly but there just isnt anything to do any more.
Played TSW from the closed beta until shortly before it went B2P. I love the game but don't play it anymore. I may go back someday, though. Bought the lifetime and have no regrets.
I don't play anymore for one reason: My cabal came together during the closed beta and became a very tight group. Unfortunately, it started to implode shortly after launch due to RL issues and was never able to recover. So I soloed everything and only did one instance. Trying to upgrade from QL10 blues without a cabal is a very daunting challenge, and one I eventually decided I didn't want to take on.
One of these days maybe I'll go back and try to either resurrect the old cabal or find a new one. TSW is an entertaining and clever game. For me, the biggest drawback was character graphics in both character creation and the cutscenes.
The combat all the way. I am a lifetime sub and I don't play it nearly as much as I would like to. I just have a hard time getting into the combat. I really really wish they had gone with a more action based combat or even a slower more traditional tab target combat. What they ended up with feels like it wants to be action combat, but it's not. So it just feels like a clunky spammy tab target system.
I have not nor will I ever play it due to its rated M esrb rating. Same with AoC
I wonder how many others pass on it because of this.
While I certainly appreciate your choice, I think that if they did a study of how many people passed because of the rating, they would find it inconsequential. Elder Scrolls Online has the "M" rating as well, but is attracting a very large following. I think the amount of people who choose not to play over a rating far less than people who choose to play over other reasons.
Is this a Joke? If its not I assume he must mean because its not 18+ more gore and nudity? It would really suit this game.
I stopped playing because it really isn't that different. It might be a different setting, but its still a quest hub themepark. That's not to say I have anything against quest hub themeparks, it just the TSW doesn't do it very well. The quest were generic, except for the puzzle ones, and usually those were so challenging it was frustrating rather than fun. Also all the monsters, while wearing different skins, usually fought in the same manner, get in your face and kill you. Making them all feel the same.
+1. Too much cash shop dependence
And I have to disagree on the character customization, its more of an extremely limited customization. I kept coming up with builds on characters I wanted to make, but it always went over the limit on the number of skill and passive slots I had. So the character I felt always seemed to be some limited version of what I actually wanted my character to be.
Also I try to stay away from cash shop games now. I haven't found a one where I can spend just $15 a month and get a satisfying game experience like I can from a subscription game.
Why - because the melee combat (blood/fist healing spec) is like a pack of string puppets having a fight. It literally is random arm waving with no connection to what is actually going on.
Quite simply the worst close up combat mechanics of any game I have played.
I still play TSW, but then I don't have that much time to play these days, so it is nice to pop in for a limited time..
Kingsmouth area was excellent, but while I see what they tried to do with Egypt it wasn't my cup of tea. Transylvania was better, but I think they overreached with combining Soviet-era research with vampires. Still not a terrible zone.
Combat system is decent, but most people tend to stay with certain weapons. Tanks has to be melee, and most run Blades. DPS usually must run Shotgun. Melee actually seem to have a bit more options, but still are limited to leech or fists. I found combat fair, but the challenge level wasn't really there during level up. Nightmares was fun, but once you learn the dungeons they become repetitive. If they added much more randomness to the Nightmare dungeons so that every run became a new experience, then it would be a lot more fun.
"You don’t have one of the longest running MMOs on the market by making a bad game."
Apparently, you do. If you want to destroy a franchise or see how badly something can be designed, give it to Funcom. I was in Conan from beta. The crafting, gathering, gear system was horrible. In fact, it may be the worst designed system in the history of MMOs or any game. I returned a couple years later, but I couldn't last more than a couple of months with the overall design and poor balance.
I am a huge Lovecraft and horror fan. I looked forward to TSW even though I knew that Funcom would screw it up. They hired the same preschool focus group to build the TSW crafting system. They designed three factions with basically the same backstory and customization options. And then threw in a skill combat system that was just complex for the sake of being complex and confusing. Been back twice, but no more. Next to NCSoft, Funcom makes some of the worst decisions of any company still in business.
I hope they do go out of business before they subject us to some other terribly implemented game and destroy another rich franchise. Thank all of the ancient ones they never got access to the WoD IP.
Funcom does not make MMO's they make single player games with internet.When they learn to bring players together aside from anything pvp then they might start to realize how content should work for a MMO.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Originally posted by FoomerangCrafting is embarrasingly bad. The writing is juvenile. I thought the rest of the game was very well done. But those two things turned me away.
Really? I disagree there. But I'm curious on why you think so and also what mmo doesn't have juvenile writing then?
Anyway, I like TSW. But I can't quite put my finger on why I don't play it hardly anymore.
I think it was too many cut scenes with characters that are supposed to be sophisticated brilliant, devious masterminds, all throwing out four letter words like they are trying to be the cool kid in junior high. That's the best I can do to explain. Dialogue ended up feeling cheap and pandering to some demographic that I was not a part of.
wow.. this is the most sycophantic and fanboish and apologetic article I've read from MMORPG.com in a long time. Basically a fanboy is worried their game is going to shutdown and goes about making up excuses and dreaming up ways to spin the glaring problems into positives. oooooh so its OUR FAULT THE COMBAT IS BORING? rofl k, fail article. complete fail. Complexity? rofl. rofl rofl. You can add as many gears and wheels to a machine as you want... but if its just gonna roll in one direction then its redundant.
I still recommend the game even though I've given up playing it myself. And it definitely is true that people bemoan "Kill 10 rats" type of quests and the class/level system, and increasingly the lack of voice overs, and it's like TSW is standing there waving its arms unable to get anybody's attention.
I think there are some things that are really REALLY good about the game. I think as far as questing goes, if you're going to use questing as your primary PvE mechanic, the objectives in TSW are the best I've come across in a game. I'd love to see some of the ideas adapted to fantasy MMOs. Imagine deciphering an "ancient code" in a fantasy alphabet you have to learn about in the game by hand, leading you to a tomb where, instead of having to kill hordes of mobs, you have to solve a puzzle to disable the traps and claim the treasure. Yes please!
On the other hand, I loathe some of the limitations they have arbitrarily placed to intentionally waste people's time. You mean if I come across this mangled body I can't really inspect it because I'm already doing X? Yeah, because we need you to run around doing X to chew up play time, so you have to run back to inspect the body after we've sent you to the other side of the map. I know every "non-hater" of the game defends this mechanic on the grounds of "immersion," but at the end of the day, TSW is a tiny game that had to fish for ways to keep people engaged. GW2 does the same thing, using different tools. People shouldn't need their time wasted to keep them playing for N hours a day. It's an annoying, condescending approach to game design. As long as its not breaking any of the game's fundamental mechanics, let me play the way I want to play.
The chat system wasn't the only problem at release. Some of the quests were horribly broken, though sometimes in ways where it wasn't obvious. Funcom did a really good job responding when I reported them, and resetting things so I could move on. Being able to talk with a rep who was patient and willing to work with me was so much better than the friggin' customer service robots in SWTOR, and it's something I wish Funcom got some credit for, because that's how in-game customer service is supposed to be. Nevertheless, TSW proves that the silent majority absolutely does not buy into the whole "Every game has these issues at release" garbage every fanboy ever uses to defend broken systems at launch. Some things are worse than others, but TSW was an offender, and it suffered for it.
TERA's player base at release wins the award for most detestable, but TSW's is still incredibly obnoxious and condescending. The whole "Playing this game proves I'm smart (and obviously you aren't playing it because you're dumb)" mentality is absolutely pervasive among the TSW player base, and I'm sure it helped drive away some players. I've never had less fun playing with strangers than I did in TSW. Who the F trash talks people because they are struggling with a quest? Get over yourselves.
By far the biggest issue I've had with TSW is that the combat experience is completely unsatisfying. I know TSW fans dismiss it as people making petty arguments over animations and what not, but killing stuff is half of your game; if you can't do it in a way that's satisfying to people, they should leave. It's your fault, not their's. Ask many long-time WoW players and they will tell you that WoW's greatest strength is its responsiveness, where it is arguably still the king of MMOs all these years later. I describe it as the idea that, as you are hitting your action button, you have the sensation of your character responding, like it's a mechanical relationship. From there, the animations and timing give the actions "weight." TSW lacks that. Somewhere there is a disconnect between pressing the button, your character's actions (and the accompanying sound effects), and the mobs reacting to being hit. When combat is so much of your game, you have to be a lot closer than TSW was, or you are going to pay the price for it.
In the end it's unfortunate. I get the sense that the reasons why TSW never took off end up portraying the reasons it should have taken off in a bad light, and discouraged future games from drawing from TSW's positives in terms of quests, NPC integration, atmosphere, and alternative character-building system.
I like this game. I will admit the investigation quests are usually over my head. My wife and try to work on them, sometimes for days, only to give in and cheat by looking up the answers. Other than that I think it's great fun.
It's a good game. But felt too 'zoned' and clunky. Didn't feel like I was playing in a game world, just a series of very sectioned off zones. I like a feeling of a fairly cohesive world with my MMO's.
It's very exciting to see a TSW column. No the game is not perfect but the things it does well, it really excels at. It's a game everyone should take a look at and it's nice to see it getting more attention. I don't play it every day as I have a lot of games I enjoy, but it's a game I always come back to. TSW is just so different from most other games in some important ways.
The combat is not complex at all. You literally spam the same rotation in combat over and over. Worse yet, your rotation is severely limited in the game as opposed to games like WoW. The game may have 500 skills, but when most of them are functionally the same it doesn't matter. For example I remember one of my choices being a heal that does X amount and puts on Y amount of shield or a heal that does Y amount and puts on X amount of shield. /yawn
The skills are also severely limited too. Most passives only effect a set of skills tied to one of two weapons or a even just a single skill entirely, forcing you to build around the passives. As with the passives, the actives are tied to a weapon which you can only use two of, so you can't mix and match as you please.
The combat itself is standard tab targeting that we've been seeing in MMOs for years, albeit with active dodging thrown in. It's nothing exciting by itself. One positive thing I will say about it is some of the dungeon design is interesting, generally trash is kept to a minimum, and boss encounters are well done.
Aside from massive bugs that still persist to this day, the game has severe balance issues. For example you complained about people perceiving the combat as boring and you mentioned sword users spamming the same AoE skill over and over. Maybe that's because the AoE skill is too good and the other sword skills are not nearly on par with it. That's the game's balance in a nutshell and extends across all specs. You can have as many skills as you want, but players are going to take whatever is optimal.
Way too many single player instances that make playing together with a friend difficult which is also another problem I have with the game. It feels like yet another solo MMO with the ability to occasionally group up.
It has great things about it, like the ARG style Investigation missions, some great content (when it works), and great dungeon design, but overall it's one of those play for a month hardcore and you are left triyng to find things to do.
I love TSW that said, iv done everything there is to do in the game, even grind out my nightmares and pvp gear to the point i just felt overpowerenough and quit, im patiently waiting for tokyo and know im gonna love every second of it! If funcoms reading this, NO STRESS GUYS N GALS make tokyo top top!
I loved the game concept and the story but for me the combat was the killer. Weapons seemed very ineffective, without any knockback etc. To play a modern game I guess I have certain expectations that you don't when playing a fantasy game.
Comments
Everyone's actually covered all the reasons why I don't play TSW. I did enjoy the first zone, but as I fought through Egypt it all became so meh, and the end game looming on the horizon looked far too familiar.
So I'll close by saying it just isn't enough like EVE.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I loved this game, but i ran out of content.
The main storyline has barely budged with their rediculious instancing system in place. The side stories were good, but again a lack of content updates. I feel like i have done every quest at least three times. Why keep playing after that, constant raid and dungeon instances dont cut it.
O lets not forget the crap tastic crafting system. I want to play this game so badly but there just isnt anything to do any more.
Played TSW from the closed beta until shortly before it went B2P. I love the game but don't play it anymore. I may go back someday, though. Bought the lifetime and have no regrets.
I don't play anymore for one reason: My cabal came together during the closed beta and became a very tight group. Unfortunately, it started to implode shortly after launch due to RL issues and was never able to recover. So I soloed everything and only did one instance. Trying to upgrade from QL10 blues without a cabal is a very daunting challenge, and one I eventually decided I didn't want to take on.
One of these days maybe I'll go back and try to either resurrect the old cabal or find a new one. TSW is an entertaining and clever game. For me, the biggest drawback was character graphics in both character creation and the cutscenes.
+1
Is this a Joke? If its not I assume he must mean because its not 18+ more gore and nudity? It would really suit this game.
Why - because the melee combat (blood/fist healing spec) is like a pack of string puppets having a fight. It literally is random arm waving with no connection to what is actually going on.
Quite simply the worst close up combat mechanics of any game I have played.
I still play TSW, but then I don't have that much time to play these days, so it is nice to pop in for a limited time..
Kingsmouth area was excellent, but while I see what they tried to do with Egypt it wasn't my cup of tea. Transylvania was better, but I think they overreached with combining Soviet-era research with vampires. Still not a terrible zone.
Combat system is decent, but most people tend to stay with certain weapons. Tanks has to be melee, and most run Blades. DPS usually must run Shotgun. Melee actually seem to have a bit more options, but still are limited to leech or fists. I found combat fair, but the challenge level wasn't really there during level up. Nightmares was fun, but once you learn the dungeons they become repetitive. If they added much more randomness to the Nightmare dungeons so that every run became a new experience, then it would be a lot more fun.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
"You don’t have one of the longest running MMOs on the market by making a bad game."
Apparently, you do. If you want to destroy a franchise or see how badly something can be designed, give it to Funcom. I was in Conan from beta. The crafting, gathering, gear system was horrible. In fact, it may be the worst designed system in the history of MMOs or any game. I returned a couple years later, but I couldn't last more than a couple of months with the overall design and poor balance.
I am a huge Lovecraft and horror fan. I looked forward to TSW even though I knew that Funcom would screw it up. They hired the same preschool focus group to build the TSW crafting system. They designed three factions with basically the same backstory and customization options. And then threw in a skill combat system that was just complex for the sake of being complex and confusing. Been back twice, but no more. Next to NCSoft, Funcom makes some of the worst decisions of any company still in business.
I hope they do go out of business before they subject us to some other terribly implemented game and destroy another rich franchise. Thank all of the ancient ones they never got access to the WoD IP.
I will make this shortand to the point...
Funcom does not make MMO's they make single player games with internet.When they learn to bring players together aside from anything pvp then they might start to realize how content should work for a MMO.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think it was too many cut scenes with characters that are supposed to be sophisticated brilliant, devious masterminds, all throwing out four letter words like they are trying to be the cool kid in junior high. That's the best I can do to explain. Dialogue ended up feeling cheap and pandering to some demographic that I was not a part of.
wow.. this is the most sycophantic and fanboish and apologetic article I've read from MMORPG.com in a long time. Basically a fanboy is worried their game is going to shutdown and goes about making up excuses and dreaming up ways to spin the glaring problems into positives. oooooh so its OUR FAULT THE COMBAT IS BORING? rofl k, fail article. complete fail. Complexity? rofl. rofl rofl. You can add as many gears and wheels to a machine as you want... but if its just gonna roll in one direction then its redundant.
fail.
I still recommend the game even though I've given up playing it myself. And it definitely is true that people bemoan "Kill 10 rats" type of quests and the class/level system, and increasingly the lack of voice overs, and it's like TSW is standing there waving its arms unable to get anybody's attention.
I think there are some things that are really REALLY good about the game. I think as far as questing goes, if you're going to use questing as your primary PvE mechanic, the objectives in TSW are the best I've come across in a game. I'd love to see some of the ideas adapted to fantasy MMOs. Imagine deciphering an "ancient code" in a fantasy alphabet you have to learn about in the game by hand, leading you to a tomb where, instead of having to kill hordes of mobs, you have to solve a puzzle to disable the traps and claim the treasure. Yes please!
On the other hand, I loathe some of the limitations they have arbitrarily placed to intentionally waste people's time. You mean if I come across this mangled body I can't really inspect it because I'm already doing X? Yeah, because we need you to run around doing X to chew up play time, so you have to run back to inspect the body after we've sent you to the other side of the map. I know every "non-hater" of the game defends this mechanic on the grounds of "immersion," but at the end of the day, TSW is a tiny game that had to fish for ways to keep people engaged. GW2 does the same thing, using different tools. People shouldn't need their time wasted to keep them playing for N hours a day. It's an annoying, condescending approach to game design. As long as its not breaking any of the game's fundamental mechanics, let me play the way I want to play.
The chat system wasn't the only problem at release. Some of the quests were horribly broken, though sometimes in ways where it wasn't obvious. Funcom did a really good job responding when I reported them, and resetting things so I could move on. Being able to talk with a rep who was patient and willing to work with me was so much better than the friggin' customer service robots in SWTOR, and it's something I wish Funcom got some credit for, because that's how in-game customer service is supposed to be. Nevertheless, TSW proves that the silent majority absolutely does not buy into the whole "Every game has these issues at release" garbage every fanboy ever uses to defend broken systems at launch. Some things are worse than others, but TSW was an offender, and it suffered for it.
TERA's player base at release wins the award for most detestable, but TSW's is still incredibly obnoxious and condescending. The whole "Playing this game proves I'm smart (and obviously you aren't playing it because you're dumb)" mentality is absolutely pervasive among the TSW player base, and I'm sure it helped drive away some players. I've never had less fun playing with strangers than I did in TSW. Who the F trash talks people because they are struggling with a quest? Get over yourselves.
By far the biggest issue I've had with TSW is that the combat experience is completely unsatisfying. I know TSW fans dismiss it as people making petty arguments over animations and what not, but killing stuff is half of your game; if you can't do it in a way that's satisfying to people, they should leave. It's your fault, not their's. Ask many long-time WoW players and they will tell you that WoW's greatest strength is its responsiveness, where it is arguably still the king of MMOs all these years later. I describe it as the idea that, as you are hitting your action button, you have the sensation of your character responding, like it's a mechanical relationship. From there, the animations and timing give the actions "weight." TSW lacks that. Somewhere there is a disconnect between pressing the button, your character's actions (and the accompanying sound effects), and the mobs reacting to being hit. When combat is so much of your game, you have to be a lot closer than TSW was, or you are going to pay the price for it.
In the end it's unfortunate. I get the sense that the reasons why TSW never took off end up portraying the reasons it should have taken off in a bad light, and discouraged future games from drawing from TSW's positives in terms of quests, NPC integration, atmosphere, and alternative character-building system.
Funcom has repeatedly shown its complete lack of interest and ignorance of how to make world class faction vs faction conflict.
That is why...among other reasons I don't play this game or AOC.
The combat is not complex at all. You literally spam the same rotation in combat over and over. Worse yet, your rotation is severely limited in the game as opposed to games like WoW. The game may have 500 skills, but when most of them are functionally the same it doesn't matter. For example I remember one of my choices being a heal that does X amount and puts on Y amount of shield or a heal that does Y amount and puts on X amount of shield. /yawn
The skills are also severely limited too. Most passives only effect a set of skills tied to one of two weapons or a even just a single skill entirely, forcing you to build around the passives. As with the passives, the actives are tied to a weapon which you can only use two of, so you can't mix and match as you please.
The combat itself is standard tab targeting that we've been seeing in MMOs for years, albeit with active dodging thrown in. It's nothing exciting by itself. One positive thing I will say about it is some of the dungeon design is interesting, generally trash is kept to a minimum, and boss encounters are well done.
Aside from massive bugs that still persist to this day, the game has severe balance issues. For example you complained about people perceiving the combat as boring and you mentioned sword users spamming the same AoE skill over and over. Maybe that's because the AoE skill is too good and the other sword skills are not nearly on par with it. That's the game's balance in a nutshell and extends across all specs. You can have as many skills as you want, but players are going to take whatever is optimal.
Way too many single player instances that make playing together with a friend difficult which is also another problem I have with the game. It feels like yet another solo MMO with the ability to occasionally group up.
It has great things about it, like the ARG style Investigation missions, some great content (when it works), and great dungeon design, but overall it's one of those play for a month hardcore and you are left triyng to find things to do.
Herald of innovation, Vanquisher of the old! - Awake a few hours almost everyday!
i have to agree that removing the combat that was in AOC wha a huge mistake in TSW
Aoc was my favorite mmo took 1 look at beta and knew i would not get over the combat....tobad i like the quests