When it pivoted to more cinematic storytelling with Knights of the Fallen Empire back in 2015, we got much flashier cutscenes and NPC character models that weren't eyesores, and it really revitalised the flagging MMO-for these and several other reasons-but it always felt like SWTOR was being pushed to its limit, and the cracks were noticeable. It's not like BioWare hasn't pushed the engine. These are problems that will never be solved, and it speaks to a lack of foresight. Nautolans also can't wear any head gear, since they're all designed for humanlike skulls. The only solution is picking a head where the tentacles are tied in a topknot, which unfortunately looks terrible. I also gave up on my dream of making my very own Kit Fisto, because the nautolans can't wear anything without their head tentacles clipping through their clothes. My Sith Assassin can't wear cloaks because doing any spinning attack makes the cloak appear in front of them. Honestly, I'd just be happy with a game that didn't have so much terrible clipping. Even when things are working as intended, it never quite feels smooth, never quite reaches the level of polish you'd expect given EA's resources and the size of the Star Wars license. Performance, too, has been a persistent issue, especially in PvP. It has some good art, and some great concept art, but the scale is all off-a common MMO quirk, but particularly noticeable here-the textures are hideous, and the awkward animations frequently undermine what would otherwise be compelling cutscenes. The gun-toting classes do fare better, admittedly, but not much, and I'll never get used to seeing bendy laser bolts hitting enemies I'm not even facing. For all the current system's problems, the real let-down is that it just doesn't play into the fantasy of being these mystical warriors. It's just not good, and after a decade I'm finding it harder to overlook.įor something like Star Wars, with its flashy, acrobatic lightsaber duels, a more kinetic and dynamic combat model just seems like a better fit. It's not even that it's egregiously terrible-not even close. There have been loads of class and combat updates, and some massive ones are on the way, but none of them have made much difference to the bog standard PvE confrontations. Whenever a fight breaks out, I sigh and resign myself to another minute of boredom.
At least it means I only have to pay attention to a small number of my needlessly big bag of boring tricks, but the routine is just making me miserable. Outside of the trickier operations and flashpoints, I find myself defaulting to a small handful of largely underwhelming abilities, in a rotation that I know like the back of my hand.