The secret world first 20 hours - UPDATED

Arakazi

I have been playing TSW over the weekend and have been enjoying it for the most part.  I choose this game as my "flavour of the month" since it had a fairly unique setting and skill progression. I have been wandering through various games (not always MMOS) for the last 6 months since I retired myself from EVE. For the most part these games have been poor but there are games out there that are worth playing and I think TSW is one of them.

The biggest strength of the secret world is the way it delivers quests. When you pick up a quest from a NPC you are taken into a cut scene where the scene is acted out, giving you the background of the quest and in indirectly way what you have to do to meet the objectives. The dialogue is funny, ironic and sprinkled with a bit of dark humour and full of references to popular culture. The characters themselves seem to come from straight from B movies. This along with the good music and sound direction gives the game its tone and fleshes out its unique feel.

The graphics are a bit hit and miss. Some objects such as cars are poorly done, yet some interiors and buildings are well done. Some of the lighting is poor and the view distance can be disappointing particularly when you climb to the top of a building and look out expecting a vista but are met with murky gray fog. The animations of the cut scenes are expressive and communicate exactly what the characters are try to portray. But the combat animations are not as smooth as they should be.

Combat itself has fairly generic so far. You are limited on the number of abilities you can have on your hotbar and how well they work largely depends on the 7 passive abilities you have picked to compliment them so a lot of thought will have to be taken in what you pick and choose. The system reminded me a lot of GW2 in that the number of skills were limited, and largely depended on what weapon you were using. I personally don't enjoy being limited to a small number of skills since it makes battles far too similar.

There are no levels in this game, just ability and skill points which you spend when you "level". Again, you have to choose fairly carefully what you spend these on as there is no way to reset your skills once you have spent them. I found this rather annoying as I would have liked to experiment a bit. However, you can quickly gain points to spend by doing missions if you feel you have messed up.

The biggest surprise for me was the lack of classes in the game. Although you can play as a healer or tank it's an optional build rather than your chosen class and if you you play long enough you can max out all the skills that exist in the game and change builds almost on the fly. This has obvious benefits since you are not restricted in any way and there is a lot of scope for experimentation. However, I feel that this system will hurt the replayability of the game. I don't feel the differences between the factions in the game will be enough to motivate me to create a new character which makes me question how long people are willing to sub for, particularly when it is $18USD a month, making it one of the most expensive subs out there.

That aside I feel this is an enjoyable game that is well worth a try if you like enjoy PVE games with an interesting storyline or if you feel you need to take a break from the dungeons and dragons settings. As a score I would give this an 8/10

 

[EDIT]

 

Second weekend and I'm in the blue mountains, 3 bugged missions in a row and I'm furstrated that I can't add objects to the hotbar. In one mission I have to equip a chainsaw and a horde of zombies will come to attack and u have to kill them, It would of helped if I could just equip it to my hotbar along with potions or whatever. Instead I have to use my mouse to click it... which half the time it doesn't work. I died several times before giving up the second time I respawned where I died and the zombies kept spawning on top of me despite the fact I failed the mission. Another mission was a well known bug for months, still not fixed and the other one was was I had to equip an environmental suit, which I cant seem to do and activate a fire extinguisher and put out fires... which i can't seem to do. I've got fed up and logged out. Not much fun to be had here.

Ortwig

Thanks for doing a fair review.  Nicely written. Just a tip - I believe you can test out new skills before finalizing the purchase in each faction's training facility. A bit more time consuming but at least there's a place where you can test out various builds.

pandaclysm

20 hours? I am struggling against the gameplay for the first 10 hours. This game LOOKS polished. This is pretty much the same swtor problem all over again. This game was apparently rushed out. I picked it up because in interest it was second to gw2 "which WAS fun until endgame. The game play here is horrid. The controls are incredibly sticky. I don't know if I can push myself to keep playing.

Ortwig

Originally posted by pandaclysm
20 hours? I am struggling against the gameplay for the first 10 hours. This game LOOKS polished. This is pretty much the same swtor problem all over again. This game was apparently rushed out. I picked it up because in interest it was second to gw2 "which WAS fun until endgame. The game play here is horrid. The controls are incredibly sticky. I don't know if I can push myself to keep playing.

Can you clarify what you mean by sticky controls?  Are you talking delay between command and execution in combat?  It's usually immediate, unless there's an ability that's finishing up before it.  

Sevenstar61

I started 3 characters - one for each faction, but the main quest seems to be the same for all factions with the different cutscene at the start... at least for now ... as I did not go too far LOL - my most advanced toon is in Savage Cost. I hope the main quest forks a bit later on... otherwise it's really no point to have alts in this game. 

One complaint for now - I am already tired of killing bazillions of zombies LOL. I hope there will be more variety as I move on.

For beginner like me,  the ability wheel is a bit overwhelming. It seemed no big deal at first glance, but when I started to read on forums about it, I got a headache LOL - it's deep LOL, I mean deep. I can't say  that I don't like this system, but it's... well complicated LOL. It will take lots of reading and experimenting to fully understand how the synergies, states, subtypes, triggers etc  are working, what passives to use and what actve abilities match the best passives and vice-versus. Lots of abilities but limited use of them.  Nice thing is that you can use passives outside of your weapons.

I will continue to play it, though in small doses.... endless waves of zombies can be tireing...

 

 

 

augustgrace

@Sevenstar61

In the later zones zombies don't appear that I can recall.  Egypt does have a mummy and some undead servants, but mostly you'll be fighting humans from the cult of Aten.  Translyvanis has vamps and some ghosts, but most of your mobs will be living creatures of various sorts.  

 

As for "sticky" combat, I can see that for some of the slower weapon types/attacks, but it really depends on what build you go with.  If you want faster action swords and claws are quick.

UNH0LYEV1L

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

I started 3 characters - one for each faction, but the main quest seems to be the same for all factions with the different cutscene at the start... at least for now ... as I did not go too far LOL - my most advanced toon is in Savage Cost. I hope the main quest forks a bit later on... otherwise it's really no point to have alts in this game. 

One complaint for now - I am already tired of killing bazillions of zombies LOL. I hope there will be more variety as I move on.

For beginner like me,  the ability wheel is a bit overwhelming. It seemed no big deal at first glance, but when I started to read on forums about it, I got a headache LOL - it's deep LOL, I mean deep. I can't say  that I don't like this system, but it's... well complicated LOL. It will take lots of reading and experimenting to fully understand how the synergies, states, subtypes, triggers etc  are working, what passives to use and what actve abilities match the best passives and vice-versus. Lots of abilities but limited use of them.  Nice thing is that you can use passives outside of your weapons.

I will continue to play it, though in small doses.... endless waves of zombies can be tireing...

If I may suggest a few things.

Yes there is no point to doing ALTs really unless you really want to join a Cabal with a certain group and to PvP.  End game dungeons and raids can all be done interfactionally (I guess thats a word).  There are a lot of skills in the wheel and its deep...very very deep.  You will need to go down multiple trees in multiple weapons to pick up great support skills like interupts, cleanses, purges, group wide dps buffs, etc.  because unlike other games skills work on bosses.

It makes the game tough and requires very flexible characters but its because the end game is quite a bit more difficult than most people are used to in other games. You certaintly cannot just get a random group together that don't have skills like Clean Up, Impairs, Breaching Shot, Short Fuse, Electromagnetic Manifestation, Reap and Sow and expect to fly through Nightmares.

Similarly PvP takes a unique approach to both balancing health/defensive stats/and attack damage with a blend of skills.

I see the system as a challenge and I like it.  You can only have 7 skills and an AUX skill SO YOU BETTER THINK CAREFULLY about what each and every group member brings to the table.  And in that regard its both fun and fusterating trying to get skills on every person to get the job done.

As for change of setting making alts probably didn't help with the longevity of Zombie Killing.  That said Savage Coast and Blue Mountain while essentailly the same zone type as Solomon Island do have a few unique types of monsters.

If you can make it to Egypt (comes after Blue Mountain which follows Savage Coast) the monsters DO change substantially and then again when you hit Transylvania.

Sevenstar61

Wow, great answers guys. Can't wait for Egypt then. I guess I will stick with one toon /grin... though it's fun to play toons with different weapons... and not waiting until I am maxed up with APs so I can have them all...

Thanks f:) Greatly appreciated.

augustgrace

If you're concerned with missing out on what the other factions see, Joel just said on the Beyond the Veil podcast that infiltration missions are in the works.  For example he described a mission that has a Dragon or Templar inflitrate the Lumie headquarters, to get information from a certain prisoner held below.

Ortwig

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Wow, great answers guys. Can't wait for Egypt then. I guess I will stick with one toon /grin... though it's fun to play toons with different weapons... and not waiting until I am maxed up with APs so I can have them all...

Thanks f:) Greatly appreciated.

Hey, Seven --  if it's easier, you can just pick one of the starter decks to the left of the ability wheel -- they are good for getting the hang of things (and also the outfits!).  Keep a look to see how each of those decks work, and read the descriptions; you can work towards all of these.  Once you get the hang of it, here's a good guide for building your own decks:

http://yokaiblog.wikidot.com/guides:build-mechanics

Ortwig

Originally posted by augustgrace
If you're concerned with missing out on what the other factions see, Joel just said on the Beyond the Veil podcast that infiltration missions are in the works.  For example he described a mission that has a Dragon or Templar inflitrate the Lumie headquarters, to get information from a certain prisoner held below.

That's great to hear!  Looks like more interfaction strife coming (also dynamic PvP events), which is good....

Painlezz

First thing to ask yourself...  Are you enjoying the game in the first place?  Or is the "idea" of having so many skills and unlocking them the only thing that keeps you going?

Personally, I purchased this game (no idea why looking back) and I really didn't enjoy myself.  I started 3 characters and 2 of them were just horrible to level and quest with.  The 3rd was extremely easy.  I think they did a poor job of balancing some of the different trees.

Missions are kinda cool but after a while you realize they're all pretty much the same with a different wrapper.  The engine and scripting they use can only do so much.

 

Top it off, there was no easy way to find groups to do group content with.  In fact, while I was playing after release it was common for your ability to chat with other players to be broken.  The chat channels were simply not available.  Sometimes relogging fixed it, other times you were just screwed for a few days.  I assume this has been fixed, but it really ruined the experience for me and many others.

Sevenstar61

Originally posted by Ortwig

Originally posted by Sevenstar61

Wow, great answers guys. Can't wait for Egypt then. I guess I will stick with one toon /grin... though it's fun to play toons with different weapons... and not waiting until I am maxed up with APs so I can have them all...

Thanks f:) Greatly appreciated.

Hey, Seven --  if it's easier, you can just pick one of the starter decks to the left of the ability wheel -- they are good for getting the hang of things (and also the outfits!).  Keep a look to see how each of those decks work, and read the descriptions; you can work towards all of these.  Once you get the hang of it, here's a good guide for building your own decks:

http://yokaiblog.wikidot.com/guides:build-mechanics

Thanks for suggestions. I think I've already been there... this one is good  - I just need to get more into it...

http://www.tsw-builder.com/#14vp332121_130_330421