Well, well, well…. I’m back.
It’s been some time since my last post. The holiday season handed me a few challenges which all took my time away from everything web-related. I’m glad to say that these challenges are somewhat behind me now and I now have time (at long last) to focus on TOR again.
I was going to start my return post with a rant about the imbalance of the class system, but I will put that off for another time.
Today I will walk you through a simple and easy-to-follow macro set-up I’m playing around with in-game. It’s by no means perfect, but it does help to simplify key binds and the fast-paced combat which we all have come to expect in TOR.
The minimum requirement is a 3-button mouse. Better still is a programmable mouse with extra buttons, but this can be bypassed with a program like Auto-Hotkey which will work just as well.
The reason I call this a 1-2-3 macro is the simple fact that is that you will use 1, 2 and 3 as you main macro set-up. You could use 8, 9, 0 and free up your lower keys for easy use, but it still works out that all skills will be grouped into sets of 3.
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With the hands on time in Austin it went a long way to settle many of the nagging concerns that I have about TOR. I’ve also got to the point that I no longer threat about space combat. Sure it’s not what I was hoping for, but I do not see with the utter contempt that I once used to view it with.
Though the crafting system still has me very worried. This may be due to the fact that I’m somewhat of a traditionalist when it comes to crafting. I cut my teeth in Ulitima, then continued on in SWG and Eve.
Think what you will of these games, but I’m sure everyone will agree that these had and continue to have the best crafting you can still find out there atm.
TOR is heading from taking the player out of the crafting. You get to have a say at what you want then pass it on to your minions.
Many will see this as a great leap forward. Crafting after all is not for everyone. It takes real-time to gain your skills, and as such you forgo some of the other activities. You will have to cut back on raids and scale down on PvP when you want to be the best crafters.
This in turn sees many a player having to choose what they like to do more.
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Continuing his streak of highly informative posts on the main SWTOR forums, Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller, voted most likely in his class to scream out “Mein Luftkissenfahrzeug ist voller Aale!” at inappropriate times, stopped by once more to enlighten us about Smugglers and their Cover mechanics.
Georg Zoeller - The Wookiee Whisperer
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Yeah, yeah I know, nice pun on words for the title, but that’s sort of how I see tanking in Swtor going, and that makes me excited. Now, it really isn’t taking from behind the group, it’s what Bioware is calling Ranged Tanking. This isn’t your standard fantasy MMO where the tank is wielding swords and shields and charging that massive dragon because, well you know, swords have a reach issue. Not blasters folks and once you go blasters, you never go back.
So let’s get this out of the way first. This is the Star Wars Universe. At no time in any movie do you see anyone beyond Jedi popping out any type of sword and going at it. Even when Luke whips out the Lightsaber and goes full tilt on some Stormtroopers, you don’t seem those Troopers pack up the blasters and whip out a vibroblade so they can melee like a Jedi.
Blasters are a part of the Universe in the game. so to have this type of game play in the Swtor MMO, it makes me excited, especially after seeing the videos from PAX weekend.
Now, not all melee is gone as you can see that the mobs can get up close, especially the Captains pet, and there is still that old school feel for the melee fights. The thing is, the tanks aren’t sword carriers unless they are Jedi.
The other aspect of the game that goes hand in hand with the Ranged Tanking is the aggro swap off I saw. I noticed a couple of instances where the Trooper would end up in melee range and pop aggro over to the Jedi, who since he carries a Lightsaber, would start the melee fight and let the Trooper get some range again. once this happened, the Trooper then took over as ranged tank again and the Jedi went back to DPS.
There are so many aspects of this game that are starting to come out that once everything becomes known to the players of the game, there may be more that excites us beyond what we know so far.
