Wednesday, May 16, 2012

SWTOR At One Month

My first month in SWTOR has just about wound up - minus some time due to real life scheduling conflicts but plus a few days due to the referral trial program.


My first character is sitting at level 34, having completed the class story on Balmorra and collected four of my five companions.  This means that I'm done with seven of the twelve planets I will visit as part of my class story (not counting Ilum, which is PVP only as far as I'm aware).

There is still solo content left on about half of the planets I have visited, but I have chosen to forge ahead as my level permits in the name of preserving challenge.  I'm continuing to tackle content that's 2-3 levels above my head in search of an appropriate difficulty level.  In principle, this all means that my next Republic character could have a significant amount of content that I have not seen previously (assuming that I don't go back and power through the old stuff to farm companion affection for legacy unlocks).

Based on this timeline and rate of advancement, I'm probably looking at about six weeks of real time per level 50 character, and about four playthroughs (two per faction, and, coincidentally enough, one for each mirrored class pairing) before I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel for content I have yet to complete.  I have not yet started a single alt due to how the Legacy system rewards work, but to Bioware's credit the only hard part about my next character will be the choice of which of the six classes (excluding Bounty Hunter because it's the mirror of my Trooper) to play next.

Is it ideal for Bioware if I ultimately pay for six months' worth of game time before wandering off into the double-sunset?  Perhaps not, but it's hard to call that a real failure either.  I suppose I should also be worried about whether all the legacy perks will harm the difficulty level (though I may have gone extra easy on myself this first round by playing a tank-spec with a healing companion).  Overall, though, I'd call my first month in the Old Republic a success.

6 comments:

  1. It may not actually take that long to be honest for your subsequent playthroughs since you will know where all the quest mobs are. I noticed that my Bounty hunter alt has taken half the time that my Sith Warrior has taken to level up actually. I would say that the total time taken to level your first 50 takes about 4 weeks plus, where subsequent toons will take maybe 2-3 weeks maximum

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  2. You should do Empire next. In my opinion, Imperial Agent is the best storyline in the game. Not sure if that means you should do it first or last.

    First might spoil you for the other stories, but last might mean you quit before experiencing it.

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  3. Ilum is about one third PvP and two thirds PvE zone. No class quests there, but it has a short planetary storyline that unlocks after you complete your class quest, some repeatable missions, and two flashpoints.

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    1. The Ilum storyline unlocks two flashpoints and lorewise is probably the most important Empire side story line. It takes about an hour to complete, but to me is mandatory.

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  4. My first character was a tank bounty hunter and it took me in excess of 6 days of /played time to get to 50. My second character was a healer sith inquisitor and that took me about 4.5 days of /played time. My most recent 50 was a marauder and it took me about 90 hours.

    You will die more often soloing with a DPS character, but overall as DPS goes up the time it takes to reach 50 comes down.

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  5. I noticed u plan not to roll a bounty hunter at all, because of it being "mirror" of the trooper

    although it is true to some extent, the bounty hunter in my experience is BY FAR the most fun char to play in this game

    if I were u I'd prolly give it a shot at least the 1st few levels
    hint: u get the jetpack_elevated_raining_rockets ability about lvl12 or so:)

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