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| | | Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo |  |
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PrioryJK
Special Agent
Number of posts : 2575
Age : 37
Location : UK Hull
Registration date : 2009-05-01
| | Subject: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:04 am | |
| Link or its in the spoilers! - Spoiler:
- Quote :
- GDC: Trooper Hands-On & TOR Game Play Impressions
by emlaeh
, posted March 15th, 2010 at 3:03 AM
Last week LucasArts & BioWare extended an invitation to Darth Hater for another round of Star Wars: The Old Republic hands-on game play at the beautiful Presidio campus in San Francisco. Eager to take another look, Meg and I left GCD and made our way to Lucasfilm where we were treated to playing Level 6 Troopers on Ord Mantell, and also spoke in depth with Jake Neri of LucasArts and Daniel Erickson of BioWare.
Talking Trooper Class Design, Group Play & A Hint of Paths
When we sat down to speak with Jake Neri about the Trooper class, he first addressed the difficulty of making people see past the typical Stormtrooper in the movies. He explained the questions they asked themselves when they created the class: "how do you make him a badass? How do you make him competitive against a Sith or a Bounty Hunter?"
"I think when you start to look at class design of a game, we can stretch it. We can make it fun, we can make abilities that makes sense when going against a melee class like a Sith Warrior," Neri continued. "You got your Stock strike that knocks them down. And the Trooper is always trying to stay at range, because he wants to use his fire abilities or his grenades."
"So you have to stretch a little bit outside what you know in Star Wars, which is the Jedi always kicking everyone"s asses. But at the same time, we"re not just making a Force power game. We need to have diversity we need a Trooper that is really cool, fits in a spot in a group, can solo, and have fun in any situation."
And to how the Trooper worked in a group, Jake Neri explained: "We talked a little bit so far about the different paths for classes to go down. But what we showed of the Trooper is that he is pretty much a hybrid, range class a DPS class if you want to use the trinity metaphor there."
"He would support a Knight," he said. "So a Knight would be up in front, using his sword and doing damage, while the Trooper is standing back, laying down cover, and just doing pure DPS. What is really cool about the Trooper is that we don"t have to over-think it. We really want to have someone that blows the crap out of people and just uses his rifle. There is no magic there; it is just pure visceral, rapid fire combat and that is really what the Trooper brings to the table."
During the hands on time with the game, we examined the buttons on the interface and noticed that the elusive seventh button we noticed on James Ohlen"s monitor during Developer Dispatch 6: Return to Taris was present. Our original speculation was that it is a skill tree button, and sure enough, it was. However, when we clicked on it to see the panel, we received an error: "Requires Advanced Class" and the resulting large window was completely empty. We brought this up to Jake Neri, and asked him if he could tell us about the Trooper"s paths and how they were distinct from each other.
"Well, that is our challenge with all these classes," Neri said. "We want to make sure that we have something unique on each side. Last year, we talked a lot about how you start your class design. It was mostly about 'What is the Star Wars fantasy?' As we start down that second path sometimes, we break that fantasy."
We brought up the Smuggler's Medicine tree in the Scoundrel path and inquired if the Trooper had something similar. "I suppose there might be something like that for the Trooper, but we might hold onto that and reveal that a little bit later," he replied with the stern "I can't answer that now" look.
"Understand we do need to have two distinct paths," Neri expanded. "We need to have companions that work really well with the Trooper. Ones that provide tools and the toolkit to how the Trooper is going to do battle whether in a group or by himself. Those are core challenges we are always getting at."
Jake concluded talking about these distinct paths by reassuring future Troopers that "it's not going to be like Gun and Gun."
Trooper Abilities
When we sat down to play our Level 6 Trooper, the abilities on the toolbar were set up from left to right. We noticed right away that the icons for these abilities were significantly different and more visually impressive than the ones seen in the PAX Trooper demonstration. We also learned during the demo that, with the exception of Full Auto, these skills could definitely let a Trooper "run and gun." Below are a list of abilities seen during the demo, however we should note that the game is in development and they may very well change.
Hammer Shot
Instant
Cooldown: 1.5s (global cooldown)
Range: 30m
Fires a series of hammering shots that deal 28-32 damage to the target. Generates 2 Action Points.
This was the main ability that built up action points, as the rest of the abilities consumed them.
Rifle Grenade
Action Points: 4
Instant
Range: 30m
Launches a frag grenade from the rifle that deals high damage and knockback to the primary target, and low damage to targets within 5m of the primary target.
We tried to test if there was a limit to the mobs this knock-backed and killed, so we assembled a pain train of five mobs, waited until they were within 5m, and launched. All targets were knocked back from the AOE, which was quite an impressive sight to see.
Full Auto
Action Points: 1
Channeled: 8s
Range: 30m
Fires a continuous stream of bolts that deal moderate damage for up to 8 seconds. The target caught in the blaster fire is stunned for the duration. Full Auto costs 1 Action Point for every second it is active.
This worked similar to the PAX Trooper demonstration you stood still and unleashed a ton of damage while stunning your target. If you moved, then the channeled ability would stop.
Sticky Grenade
Action Points: 6
Instant
Cooldown: 8s
Range: 5m-30m
Fire a sticky grenade that will detonate after 3s and cause the target to enter a state of panic. The explosion deals very high damage to the primary target and moderate damage to nearby enemies. All targets are knocked back from the blast.
Another crowd control ability we saw before. This coupled with the AOE was pretty powerful.
Stock Strike
Action Points: 60
Instant
Cooldown: 30s
Range: 4m
Strikes the target with the butt of the rifle dealing low damage and knocking it down for 5s.
This ability said 60 AP on the tooltip, although it might be a typo because we were able to use it on a melee range attacker after building up some points on the ranged mob for a bit.
Call Shuttle
10s cast
Cooldown: 1800s (30m)
Shuttles you back to the pre-designated travel station. Not usable in combat.
We explained this hearth stone or recall ability in December, but we thought wed show you the full tooltip with the cooldown.
Recharge & Reload
Channeled: 15s
Cooldown: 60s
Field check your gear, restoring your Health and Energy over 15s. Only usable out of combat.
This is the Troopers OOC heal over time. Once we figured out you could use it every minute, we used it every time the cooldown was up because we could switch to our more damaging, AP-consuming abilities faster on a new set of mobs.
Questing in a Large Open World
Once we were finished recording the tooltips for everyone, we started playing. The first thing we had to do was pick up a mission from a NPC in the open world. Although we didn't mention this in December, there wasn't a typical pop up quest dialog box to accept or decline it after interacting with an NPC; as soon as you clicked on them, the voiceover dialog started in the fashion of a cinematic cut scene. Once the conversation moved to our character, the familiar decision wheel was there with very distinct Light, Gray, and Dark options. You could hit the space bar and skip through the dialog until you hit the decision wheel.
We could see other players running around in the zone after picking up the quest, causing us to wonder what exactly happened to our Trooper's body while in the cinematic. However we were unable to answer that question during our time with the demo. It is possible we started in a phased area, but there wasn't any instance portals or something else to indicate that we were in a phased area. It was completely seamless.
Now that we had our quest, we hit the map icon on the minimap to get an idea of how big of an area we were going to explore on Ord Mantell. We were pleasantly surprised to see that there were indications of more than one zone on the map. Additionally, there were multiple drop down menus, that were unfortunately not active, giving us the sense that there are definitely more map iterations.
When we later spoke to Jake Neri of LucasArts about this, he told us "Yeah, but that (Ord Mantell) is one of the origin planets and it won't be as big as where you will go. I think it is safe to say that there will be different sizes of territories. Not everything is like, 'Here is your grid, fill it out, and go.' It is different."
To give an idea of the vast amounts of explorable area, I saw what we thought was a sea or large body of water in the distance. Wondering if it was possible to swim or hit an invisible wall, I started out walking towards it. It took about a minute of walking at normal pace to get close to the edge only to realize it was actually a dry sea bed with very detailed ground design littered with pits, craters, and small pebbles. This stretched out to the horizon, didn't resemble a typical matte placeholder, as I definitely got the feeling I could walk a few more minutes further. After spending another entire minute running back to the Mannett Point base, Jake Neri's statement about Ord Mantell as one of the smaller maps gave the impression that The Old Republic will be simply massive in scope.
As we started exploring the immediate zone we were in, we noticed there were a lot of NPCs who were not exactly thrilled we were there. The feeling of being in a conflicted and hostile area was immediate.
"Ord Mantell is not a happy place," Jake Neri explained. "There is conflict there, but it is also an early world. One of the goals there is 'Hey, people that haven't played an MMO need to be successful there.' So we are constantly balancing those planets. I don"t know if you guys were aware, but those planets are getting a lot of iteration. We did open up and start to do some testing. We are doing small groups, we are looking to expand that in the near future, and those origin planets are really a focus. We really want to make sure that they are good so we can extend into the larger game as we go."
Our mission took us to a large structure on Ord Mantell. We did go through a green instance portal at a point inside the multi-level building (there was an elevator we had to use to navigate between floors) but it felt extremely seamless and natural to do so. It was incorporated into the building, and there wasn't a loading screen. It wasn't blatantly obvious or gave us that "whoa, you are going into an instance" type feeling.
One of the biggest takeaways from this was that the whole quest/mission wasn't some "go kill x of y" or "collect things" quest. We weren't actively grinding mobs for this particular one, and we were definitely making decisions to affect the mission story. As we were fighting our way to around the building, a Separatist Base, a bonus quest popped up on our on-screen quest tracker. This new mission noted we killed 1 of 8 of a specific mob type, and a new quest showed up in our mission log. This "instant quest" felt very similar to Warhammer's Tome of Knowledge feature.
The Artificial Intelligence is Decently Intelligent
We saw mobs taking cover behind boxes and walls, and they appeared to be working together semi-intelligently. When encountering a group of two or three mobs, one mob would come running up to our Trooper to melee it with a sword-type weapon, and we'd have to use the Stock Strike ability to knock him back or CC him in order to focus on the mobs shooting at us from range.
There also seemed to be three levels of aggro radius according to the UI indicator: out of aggro range, mobs "looking at you" (blue), and aggression/in-combat (red). When you moved out of "looking at you" range, the status indicator would change to the default "out of combat" state. As a note of speculation, it would be reasonable to assume that later on, depending on the hostile area you were in and/or the faction of the mobs you encountered, the mobs may react to you standing in the "looking at you" range after a period of time.
Some mobs we thought we killed or be near death laying on the ground would pop back up again and start shooting at us. There was a subtle difference in their death animation, and eventually we figured out which ones would pop back up again. We'd finish them off quickly with a few shots, and then move on. The pathing has been significantly improved, as we didn't see any mobs running through walls or boxes; they walked around objects. They were also intelligently use cover: they would run away to go hide behind things in the middle of combat, and then a bit later when you least expected it and thought they were gone, they would sneak up behind you.
The mob health felt balanced to our level - but the mobs were Level 3 and Level 4, and had different ranks of mob type like a ranged "Lieutenant" who definitely had more health than the other ones. Although we couldn't see any combat text, It definitely took some time to kill them when strictly using our Hammer Shot to build Action Points and Full Auto to consume them, so we had to mix it up and use the other abilities when encountered a group of more than two mobs.
One mob we encountered completely by itself was a large, slow moving patrol-type droid. We really had to unleash hell on it to kill it one on one; we basically generated and consumed full AP bars at least twice before it finally died.
Loot, Stats, And Inventory
The character sheet of our Trooper included a significant amount of standard item slots like Bracers, Belt, Hands, Feet, Chest, Legs, and Head. There were four weapon slots: Ranged Primary, Ranged Secondary, Main Hand, and Off-Hand (both had small melee-type icons). The remaining non-armor or weapon slots were Ear, Implant, and Heirloom for a total of 14 slots.
Our Level 6 Trooper only had one weapon equipped in the Ranged Primary slot, and four pieces of armor equipped. Our characters were not equipped with helmets. Three of the armor pieces equipped weren't named, but the two other equipped items had full tooltips:
Hefty Gunnery Belt
Bound
Waist
34 Armor
100/100 Durability
+4 Agility
Requires Medium Armor
Requires Level 4
HE2 Mantellian Blaster Carbine
Bound
Ranged Primary
26-36 Energy Damage
We looted mainly gray items with an auto-loot feature that would automatically deposit the loot into our inventory, which had at least two panels of multiple slots or bag space for items. Meg tried to equip one of the items she looted, but noticed it was a lower level item after replacing the existing item in the slot. She tried to re-equip the heavy armor/higher level item she started out with, but received an error along the line of "you do not have the armor proficiency to equip that item."
The three main stats the Trooper seemed to use were Agility, Endurance, and Cunning.
Falling Damage & How We Failed At Death
One of the first things a true Hater does when they get their hands on Star Wars: The Old Republic is to immediately try to figure out a way to die. I noticed there was a larger structure nearby, and after a quick check behind the shoulder, I jumped off of it - and discovered falling damage is definitely in the game. It took about 25% off a full health pool, but I couldn't tell if the armor I wore mitigated it in any way.
Still determined to die, I successfully pulled a bunch of mobs on me and the death window popped up with the "Return to Med Center" and "Self Resurrect" debug option similar to another familiar Trooper in the PAX demonstration video. One of the LucasArts folks figured out what I was trying to do by that time, because before I could click the "Return to Med Center" button, I was told I wanted to "get right back into the action," and another hand that didn't belong to me clicked the Self Resurrect debug button.
As we pointed out earlier, there is a durability statistic on item pieces, however I didn't see a durability loss afterward.
Conclusion
We realized the Trooper's combat was fast-paced and immediately engaging compared to the "take a full bar and empty it" typical of ranged DPS classes in other MMOs. All the tools at our disposal to cope with multi-mob situations at such a low level enhanced our enjoyment of playing the class, and gave us a very immersible feel.
The attention to facial and environmental detail seemed improved over recent official footage. The vocal intonation of our characters was extremely believable and polished, and they felt customized to the male and female human characters we played at the various demo stations.
We wanted to sit there for hours playing and exploring, but we were told we had to go in order to make room for the next group. We reluctantly said goodbye to our Troopers and Ord Mantell, musing about what other fun explosives and guns the Trooper would use later on.
| |
| | | | Lunarwolf
Chief Operative
Number of posts : 6401
Age : 45
Location : Southampton, UK
Registration date : 2009-02-23
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:14 am | |
| "dats some big guns!"
All of that is looking really promising. I can understand why they went with Trooper as a class demo though, its a very generic class without too many 'bellls and whistles' allowing the tester to get their teeth into and really muck about.
....Hurry up, 2011! | |
| | | | 36809
Registered
Number of posts : 170
Age : 32
Location : Collingwood, Nelson, New Zealand
Registration date : 2010-01-16
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:20 pm | |
| Man that's amazing! I can't really express in words how much I would like to get into the action of the game now. Ord Mantell seems a bloody good planet to start on and even though some quests are the original "kill X of Y" its refreshing to see some that aren't! I very much enjoy hearin Haters comment about the wide terrain and the dried out sea, it gives me faith that this game will be gigantic and not just restricted and quite plain.
I can't wait to 2011 and feel that I have to amass the money for my monster-machine right now! | |
| | | | Caryington
Veteran Agent
Number of posts : 2420
Age : 41
Location : Watching you...
Registration date : 2010-03-07
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Tue Mar 16, 2010 2:17 am | |
| - 36809 wrote:
- Man that's amazing! I can't really express in words how much I would like to get into the action of the game now. Ord Mantell seems a bloody good planet to start on and even though some quests are the original "kill X of Y" its refreshing to see some that aren't! I very much enjoy hearin Haters comment about the wide terrain and the dried out sea, it gives me faith that this game will be gigantic and not just restricted and quite plain.
I can't wait to 2011 and feel that I have to amass the money for my monster-machine right now! I so do agree withat... I'm so disappointed when I think SWtOR is to be released next year. We'll just have one year to play it. Remember the end of the world is scheduled for 2012  | |
| | | | Sureshot
Chief Operative
Number of posts : 5209
Age : 47
Location : Reading, England
Registration date : 2009-02-11
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Tue Mar 16, 2010 7:16 am | |
| Great review, thanks PJK.  I have to say I'm really impressed with what I'm hearing about combat in TOR. They seem to have kept it simple but at the same time I'm really happy that the AI is sounding more advanced than any other MMO currently on the market. My only gripe is that I'm fed up with hearing about the bloody Trooper! I can't help but feel it's getting this much exposure because the devs are aware that it'll be one of the least popular classes. Although I have to admit those heavy blasters look like a hell of a lot of fun! | |
| | | | Guest
Guest
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:15 pm | |
| Flippin' brilliant! An excellent article which definitely hits the spot. It was really funny reading about how they tried to die back to the medical bay but the LA overseers stepped in! lol Not that it ever wasn't the casxe but I think I'd better start saving for my lifetime sub right now...  |
| | | | Sureshot
Chief Operative
Number of posts : 5209
Age : 47
Location : Reading, England
Registration date : 2009-02-11
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Tue Mar 16, 2010 12:59 pm | |
| Speaking of great Darth Hater articles has anyone else read this in-depth interview on story? I found it pretty informative. | |
| | | | 36809
Registered
Number of posts : 170
Age : 32
Location : Collingwood, Nelson, New Zealand
Registration date : 2010-01-16
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:55 pm | |
| I just read it Sureshot. Very interesting and I especially love one part. - Daniel Erickson wrote:
Many MMOs are sort of flat or rolling plains with points of interest inside them. Our stuff is hand crafted in every foot, and there's detail and interest in every foot. And the ability to do this, as opposed to BioWare tropes, is one of the things I'd put out there as a hint of things to come. There's nothing like a game with huge terrain and areas. I absolutely love it! | |
| | | | Guest
Guest
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:27 am | |
| - Sureshot wrote:
- Speaking of great Darth Hater articles has anyone else read this in-depth interview on story? I found it pretty informative.
Thanks for pointing that out, SS . It's all very, very encouraging. Especially reading about the effort they're putting into story content and mechanics: - Erickson wrote:
- you get to have arguments and you get to go different directions. Some of the most fun stuff is to write is party chatter. People will actually address you instead of her and you can actually call them back and be like "Hey, excuse me I'm the Sith Lord. You don't talk to the Bounty Hunter -- you talk to me."
And you have decisions where it goes to the decision making process, and one person loses. You decided to kill that person, and your Bounty Hunter friend gets mad. And he is like "hey -- you killed them" And you're like "well, alright, but they are dead, so what do you want me to do about it exactly?" That dynamic is actually really fun. How great is that? Can't wait! |
| | | | Sureshot
Chief Operative
Number of posts : 5209
Age : 47
Location : Reading, England
Registration date : 2009-02-11
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:39 am | |
| Theres a new video interview from Ten Ton Hammer with Daniel Erickson here if you wanted to check it out guys. | |
| | | | PrioryJK
Special Agent
Number of posts : 2575
Age : 37
Location : UK Hull
Registration date : 2009-05-01
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:40 am | |
| When he mentioned what hardcore MMOers want he didnt mention crafting once  | |
| | | | Caryington
Veteran Agent
Number of posts : 2420
Age : 41
Location : Watching you...
Registration date : 2010-03-07
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:18 am | |
| I -personnaly- am not interested in crafting. What I hope is that we -I mean the whole RP community- will have enough people and tools to change a simple game into a real Star Wars experience... Though I also hope we'll have some good PvE content. | |
| | | | PrioryJK
Special Agent
Number of posts : 2575
Age : 37
Location : UK Hull
Registration date : 2009-05-01
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:22 am | |
| - (Soude][Drazzak) wrote:
- I -personnaly- am not interested in crafting.
Herasy! Tnh neither am I however I'm sure it'll be needed to create a longlasting community of people, well at least MMO players who'll be expecting it. | |
| | | | Caryington
Veteran Agent
Number of posts : 2420
Age : 41
Location : Watching you...
Registration date : 2010-03-07
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:30 am | |
| - PrioryJK wrote:
- however I'm sure it'll be needed to create a longlasting community of people, well at least MMO players who'll be expecting it.
I do agree with you. No MMO would last very long without crafting. | |
| | | | Guest
Guest
| | Subject: Re: Darth Hater GDC Trooper Demo Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:36 am | |
| - (Soude][Drazzak) wrote:
- PrioryJK wrote:
- however I'm sure it'll be needed to create a longlasting community of people, well at least MMO players who'll be expecting it.
I do agree with you. No MMO would last very long without crafting. I agree but Star Trek Online seems to think it can. Bloomin awful crafting (if you can even call it that) in that game and what I miss the most. |
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