So some think that the combat has improved. But what is the point if the mobs are so much easier now?
I saw playthroughs from current SWL with people who didn't know what they were doing, pulling too many mobs, soaking up damage from big attacks and barely lose any hp.
What I remember from TSW is that if you ended up in an area with mobs a few lvls above you , you had to actually pay attention to stay alive. Those telegraphed attacks would destroy you.
So some think that the combat has improved. But what is the point if the mobs are so much easier now?
I saw playthroughs from current SWL with people who didn't know what they were doing, pulling too many mobs, soaking up damage from big attacks and barely lose any hp.
What I remember from TSW is that if you ended up in an area with mobs a few lvls above you , you had to actually pay attention to stay alive. Those telegraphed attacks would destroy you.
You could also go throw a tunnel or cave and the mobs would go from level 20 to level 50 in a few areas. I didn't know it at the time but found out about it now that you can actually see a mobs level. I like to explore and remembered getting one-hit-killed from time to time.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
For me, the most irritating part is that all of this money they've dumped into TSW and Conan Exiles while completely abandoning Age of Conan, which is a far better game.
There are times when I daydream of winning the lottery, buying AoC away from them and turning it into the masterpiece it should be.
For me, the most irritating part is that all of this money they've dumped into TSW and Conan Exiles while completely abandoning Age of Conan, which is a far better game.
Wouldn't say better, both were awesome - and look at the bright side, AoC still is. I pretty much neglected it during the TSW years (played only 1, or maybe 2 months per year, tops), but since TSW is gone AoC became my refuge. Plus I sorta 'rediscovered' AO too, after the gfx revamp I made a new character, but then I went back to TSW... now I have the extra time to play that again from scratch.
Imagine if they'd put the fairly free crafting of Exiles into AoC, as promised... and the improved tools for Architects for their guild city building... "no, let's sell it as a standalone game, more money in there" the greedy fucks. (and if no Exiles, and no money shower on them, TSW could still be here, on maintenance mode, since they'd never gamble with their main income source then)
I noticed an update when I logged in today. The daily free cache key no longer goes only to your first character, it's a delivery that any character can claim which is good because if you a have max out character who no longer needs keys your other characters can now get them instead. Good change.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Have to admit that the voice acting for the various characters and atmosphere was very good for this game. What burned me out on it when I had played TSW back when it was new and healing Nightmare content with a very active Cabal, was that progression was very slow and there were no raids back then.
So I decided to look at it again in its new incarnation as SWL. I noticed there was new tutorial that made the story make more sense at the beginning and taught you a few basics. Combat seemed similar to before but they changed the skill trees for active and passive skills. The 3 main currencies - Aurum for cash, Shards for selling anything to vendor and used to teleport, and MoF which you get from doing completing Challenge Quests daily and for trading on Auction House.
Overall, have been enjoying it. Yes, I bought the original game in 2012 and don't plan on putting more money into it but there seems to be systems in game to use the Exchange MoF for Aurum - so if you play it alot you might not have to pay cash for some stuff using that system.
I still think its a good game with some value. I personally I liked the old wheel skill system better in TSW but the SWL tree can work, its just very normal looking and not a deal breaker for me. To comment on an above statement, yes combat survival seems easier now regardless of how much you pull, big pulls by mistake used to kill you easier. I hear they actually have raids now, I'll have to check it out when I get there again.
Bottomline: if you liked TSW before you'll probably still like SWL. If you didn't like TSW you still won't like it.
The story is very similar between then, save for tutorial areas. The quality and presentation of the story are quite good.
Combat is more dynamic in SWL, and plays smoother as well. I prefer the method of resource gain and expenditure in that game compared to TSW. The varied weapon specific system that were added in SWL are something I could have done without but not enough of a bother that I don't wish them to be removed.
Character development in TSW had more customized and granular character development than SWL, but the Wheel had the potential to be daunting to some, like my girl, and potentially off-putting. Being more streamlined in SWL made that version more accessible to the newcomer, but at the expense of the subtleties of the Wheel.
I prefer the game play of SWL but miss the Wheel of TSW somewhat.
However, the accessibility gained by the streamlining that went into SWL renewed my girl's interest in the title so that instead of being intimidated into not playing she now eagerly does so and it is one of her favourites.
As such I am quite content to sacrifice the nuance of the Wheel so that I can play with my girl at my side, enhancing the Secret World experience greatly for both of us.
So, in my self-centered and biased opinion, SWL is better... for us.
What burned me out on it when I had played TSW back when it was new and healing Nightmare content with a very active Cabal, was that progression was very slow and there were no raids back then.
Maybe you've left a tad bit early, the first raid was added with Issue#4, a couple months after launch.
I might have tried the New York one back then but don't remember it much off the top of my head. I do remember Tokyo being dangled in front of player's noses since shortly after launch, which is part of the reason I decided to re-download it again and see what's new. The story was good then despite the other shortcoming of the game.
And yes, I loved the wheel system as well but it apparently was not the end all be all if I had left the game then and decided to return recently after the conversion from TSW to SWL. Figured I give it a few months to work the bugs out.
I bit the bullet myself and gave it a go. Honestly, the only thing I like in version compared to the old one is just knowing where to go and getting through the story faster. As for the combat, things are "smoother" I guess but the concept is definitely worse to me vs the original wheel system. It feels like there's hardly any weapon system, just spam one weapon's ability, then another briefly and then build so you can spam the first faster. I'm not sure why they took out the ability to build resources for both weapons with one weapon builder and you can only have one builder type set, which is dumb especially since they lowered your ability count to 6 (7 if you count the gadget?) and passives to 5 for some reason. Just a lot of questionable choices all around that made me feel like they were hoping the reboot would be a big enough hit for it to launch on consoles or something. Overall, it feels a bit below average and the window they gave to let you get your stuff from the original game onto the new one seemed a bit small as well.
Combat is an improvement for the game. Should have happened in TSW.
Beyond that there was nothing else to SWL. It had less content and went with an even more grind based game that easily matches any Korean grinder. Not to mention that some of the grind was forced. Needed upgrade items hidden behind content most hated. (scenarios)
Funcom has given up being different and has adopted money first. Was bound to happen.
I liked TSW's Quests and the setting, but what had me go even though I loved the game was the lack of community. Cabals were mostly Chat-Warriors, who never showed their face. Then most dungeons were "Trash-Mob followed by Boss" thrown in your face, void of everything you should expect out of an Instance Dungeon.
I couldn't stand spending 90% of the time in-game alone.
As a rule, If most of my time is spent alone in an online game, its no better than playing one of the plethora of Single Player games out there with better story than what most MMOs have to offer.
Yeah and that hasn't change in Secret World Legends. It's still the same, with the difference being chat is so quiet that you can hear crickets chirp in the game. Dungeons may had some improvement, but sometimes you might get an all DPS group. No one likes to play healer or Tank. So their has been little in the way of change. Even when I play in areas like Kingsmoth or Savage Coast at launch, I ran across one or two players at most in these zones. So for me nothing really changed.
I do consider Spamming chat to find teammates for dungeon runs a lot less productive, then the LFG function,
TSW was never a great game, but SWL is definitely a step in the wrong direction.
100% this Anarchy online was and always will be the best game Funcom ever made.
I know there are people that would disagree but AO was, in my opinion, one of the best games of the century thus far. The *launch* was record-settingly bad without question, but the design of the game and classes was fantastic. To date there have not been classes in MMOs that rival the Bureaucrat and the Metaphysicist for pure fun and startling originality.
To my mind TSW falls into the same Funcom trap. The *game* is great, but the marketing and the accessibility of the game to the average player are inferior to games like EQ, WoW, etc.
I wouldn't go so far to call it "fact", but I emphatically agree that TSW was far better than SWL.
I've gone back and given SWL a good-faith, honest-to-goodness attempt. I left behind what I remembered about TSW, and was playing SWL on its own terms. I just uninstalled it. I've seen enough.
It's unplayable to me. I hate the new combat system - on its own terms, not "compared to TSW". It feels like a sloppily conceived attempt at streamlining. The skill lines idea is okay, but the implementation is really poor. Feels really kludgy.
Also, the game is EMPTY. TSW/SWL was never a highly populated game; still, I remember going to Agartha and finding the place crowded as hell, to the point of laggyness. In TSW, I would always see many people, hanging out, talking, RP'ing, etc. I went there in SWL, during Prime Time, when it's usually crowded, and there were maybe 20 people between the arrival platform and the "hollowed hall" area, with just random people running/traveling elsewhere. I used to see a number of others running around the playfields when ever I was logged in. I saw all of 2 or 3 in total in the span of 3 or 4 hours.
Chat was quiet with only the same 4 or 5 people chatting. Chat use to be really active; I'd disable it sometimes 'cause it was too much to follow. In my time checking out SWL, it was a ghost town.
Seems FC's attempts at courting a broader playerbase didn't pan out beyond the initial honeymoon/novelty phase. No surprise there, at all. Radically changing and streamlining a game, with sweeping changes no existing players were asking for, to try and make it appealing to more people seldom ever works out. Especially not the way FC handled it. You alienate the people who stuck around because they liked the game as it was, while failing to attract fresh blood, because it's "an old game". Seen it time and again. Seems FC hasn't been paying attention.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit vindicated. I said this was going to be a bad move in the long run back when they first announced the change to F2P/SWL, and got a taste of the changes for myself. Not saying "SWL is dead". Not even saying it's "dying". But, at best, it's doing as well as TSW was, or possibly worse; like I said, I routinely saw far more people out and about and in chat in TSW, right up 'til it was converted over. From my own time and experience.
FC should have left TSW alone and catered to the long-time, loyal players they'd earned over its first several years. They could have done some marketing and promotion to bring in new players who would enjoy it, but perhaps weren't aware of it. But, anyone who's followed FC knows they're awful at marketing (aside from "we have naked boobs" for their Conan titles). The time and money spent on SWL could have gone into needed optimizations and improvements to the engine and infrastructure for the game they already had.
Well, the original TSW is still available/playable. So who knows... maybe they'll try and right their screw-ups and bring back the loyal players they'd earned and then tossed aside in the first place. Not holding my breath... but it's nice to think about.
Comments
I saw playthroughs from current SWL with people who didn't know what they were doing, pulling too many mobs, soaking up damage from big attacks and barely lose any hp.
What I remember from TSW is that if you ended up in an area with mobs a few lvls above you , you had to actually pay attention to stay alive. Those telegraphed attacks would destroy you.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
There are times when I daydream of winning the lottery, buying AoC away from them and turning it into the masterpiece it should be.
Plus I sorta 'rediscovered' AO too, after the gfx revamp I made a new character, but then I went back to TSW... now I have the extra time to play that again from scratch.
Imagine if they'd put the fairly free crafting of Exiles into AoC, as promised... and the improved tools for Architects for their guild city building... "no, let's sell it as a standalone game, more money in there" the greedy fucks.
(and if no Exiles, and no money shower on them, TSW could still be here, on maintenance mode, since they'd never gamble with their main income source then)
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
So I decided to look at it again in its new incarnation as SWL. I noticed there was new tutorial that made the story make more sense at the beginning and taught you a few basics. Combat seemed similar to before but they changed the skill trees for active and passive skills.
The 3 main currencies - Aurum for cash, Shards for selling anything to vendor and used to teleport, and MoF which you get from doing completing Challenge Quests daily and for trading on Auction House.
Overall, have been enjoying it. Yes, I bought the original game in 2012 and don't plan on putting more money into it but there seems to be systems in game to use the Exchange MoF for Aurum - so if you play it alot you might not have to pay cash for some stuff using that system.
I still think its a good game with some value. I personally I liked the old wheel skill system better in TSW but the SWL tree can work, its just very normal looking and not a deal breaker for me. To comment on an above statement, yes combat survival seems easier now regardless of how much you pull, big pulls by mistake used to kill you easier. I hear they actually have raids now, I'll have to check it out when I get there again.
Bottomline: if you liked TSW before you'll probably still like SWL. If you didn't like TSW you still won't like it.
I've played both. Each has different merits.
The story is very similar between then, save for tutorial areas. The quality and presentation of the story are quite good.
Combat is more dynamic in SWL, and plays smoother as well. I prefer the method of resource gain and expenditure in that game compared to TSW. The varied weapon specific system that were added in SWL are something I could have done without but not enough of a bother that I don't wish them to be removed.
Character development in TSW had more customized and granular character development than SWL, but the Wheel had the potential to be daunting to some, like my girl, and potentially off-putting. Being more streamlined in SWL made that version more accessible to the newcomer, but at the expense of the subtleties of the Wheel.
I prefer the game play of SWL but miss the Wheel of TSW somewhat.
However, the accessibility gained by the streamlining that went into SWL renewed my girl's interest in the title so that instead of being intimidated into not playing she now eagerly does so and it is one of her favourites.
As such I am quite content to sacrifice the nuance of the Wheel so that I can play with my girl at my side, enhancing the Secret World experience greatly for both of us.
So, in my self-centered and biased opinion, SWL is better... for us.
And yes, I loved the wheel system as well but it apparently was not the end all be all if I had left the game then and decided to return recently after the conversion from TSW to SWL. Figured I give it a few months to work the bugs out.
Beyond that there was nothing else to SWL. It had less content and went with an even more grind based game that easily matches any Korean grinder. Not to mention that some of the grind was forced. Needed upgrade items hidden behind content most hated. (scenarios)
Funcom has given up being different and has adopted money first. Was bound to happen.
I do consider Spamming chat to find teammates for dungeon runs a lot less productive, then the LFG function,
I've gone back and given SWL a good-faith, honest-to-goodness attempt. I left behind what I remembered about TSW, and was playing SWL on its own terms. I just uninstalled it. I've seen enough.
It's unplayable to me. I hate the new combat system - on its own terms, not "compared to TSW". It feels like a sloppily conceived attempt at streamlining. The skill lines idea is okay, but the implementation is really poor. Feels really kludgy.
Also, the game is EMPTY. TSW/SWL was never a highly populated game; still, I remember going to Agartha and finding the place crowded as hell, to the point of laggyness. In TSW, I would always see many people, hanging out, talking, RP'ing, etc. I went there in SWL, during Prime Time, when it's usually crowded, and there were maybe 20 people between the arrival platform and the "hollowed hall" area, with just random people running/traveling elsewhere. I used to see a number of others running around the playfields when ever I was logged in. I saw all of 2 or 3 in total in the span of 3 or 4 hours.
Chat was quiet with only the same 4 or 5 people chatting. Chat use to be really active; I'd disable it sometimes 'cause it was too much to follow. In my time checking out SWL, it was a ghost town.
Seems FC's attempts at courting a broader playerbase didn't pan out beyond the initial honeymoon/novelty phase. No surprise there, at all. Radically changing and streamlining a game, with sweeping changes no existing players were asking for, to try and make it appealing to more people seldom ever works out. Especially not the way FC handled it. You alienate the people who stuck around because they liked the game as it was, while failing to attract fresh blood, because it's "an old game". Seen it time and again. Seems FC hasn't been paying attention.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a bit vindicated. I said this was going to be a bad move in the long run back when they first announced the change to F2P/SWL, and got a taste of the changes for myself. Not saying "SWL is dead". Not even saying it's "dying". But, at best, it's doing as well as TSW was, or possibly worse; like I said, I routinely saw far more people out and about and in chat in TSW, right up 'til it was converted over. From my own time and experience.
FC should have left TSW alone and catered to the long-time, loyal players they'd earned over its first several years. They could have done some marketing and promotion to bring in new players who would enjoy it, but perhaps weren't aware of it. But, anyone who's followed FC knows they're awful at marketing (aside from "we have naked boobs" for their Conan titles). The time and money spent on SWL could have gone into needed optimizations and improvements to the engine and infrastructure for the game they already had.
Well, the original TSW is still available/playable. So who knows... maybe they'll try and right their screw-ups and bring back the loyal players they'd earned and then tossed aside in the first place. Not holding my breath... but it's nice to think about.
Sad.