A big point of interest was the look at the combat abilities. The stream highlighted the new gimmicks — the special weapon abilities — as well as the active and passive ability windows. The 16 active abilities on each weapon come in four distinct types designated by colored names. The builders and consumers system was replaced with energy that regenerates over time.
- White: Basic abilities with no energy cost so they can be spammed.
- Red: Power abilities that consume energy and are used most of the time.
- Purple: Specials that consume more energy but are stronger and have a cooldown.
- Yellow: Elite ability, of which players can only have one active at a time.
Unlike in The Secret World, the map in SWL will show quest markers only for the missions that are of the player’s level or lower; no longer will players see icons for missions they can’t reasonably complete yet. Also, completed missions will be indicated. Game Director Romain Amiel emphasized that missions are still repeatable, except for story missions prior to Tokyo.
As for upgrading gear, devs showed how simple it was to just feed looted gear into the piece you want to keep in the crafting window. Devs also announced that the next iteration of beta is planned for soon and will bring Transylvania’s Shadowy Forest and Besieged Farmlands in along with the blade. If you missed the stream live, you can catch all the details in the recording.
Funcom should just straight up make a singleplayer Secret World game with some cooperative multiplayer thrown into the mix.
I like the changes so far. Definitely an improvement over the old version. PvP will surely be more satisfying with the new system. I’ll probably miss some of the freedom the old system gave but in the long run this seems easier to expand on and easier to balance as well.
So are you giving away a single beta key then now you have a spare? hehe
Meh. I love the game, but character customization is weak, animations are poor, and it doesn’t seem like these changes are enough to hook people up.
I’ll play it cuz i love tsw, but honestly, it seems really weak.
This is starting to look more and more like 1st Guild Wars. Limited skillbar will many abilities to unlock, energy system, one elite skill, instanced world with central hub. I love it. I always thought there should be more games similar to GW and Secret world will work much better with this structure.
TSW always feel like the the 1st GW than a real mmo.
that why i played until now but i dont think ill return for round 2
The changes are cool for new players (I only tried TSW during beta and after that I wnet to GW2) but for veterans it kind of sucks that you are loosing your chars and progression.
Combat animations need a major overhaul.
Now that Massively won a beta key, do we get brutally honest coverage or just crickets from now on ? :)
I am pretty certain that the main Secret World player on the staff already had a key and was already in the beta.
So maybe he gives it to me?
she :-)
The beta is still under a strict NDA, so the MOP folks can’t talk about what they actually experience in the game without violating it.
The build and consume was what I liked about TSW’s combat … It was how static and slow that I didn’t like.
Build and consume at least feel like you had control over things. You only want to build 2 counters before using your consumer, then go ahead. Want to build all 5 instead? Great. You prefer to do AoE/group heals powered by your own blood and not build anything at all? Sure.
2+ minute fights with small groups of at-level open world mobs, however, was just too much. I thought the balance they had after the EPE was much better, but everything felt like a bullet sponge, even characters. I built a blade/chaos survival build with frenzies for both good AoE damage and lots of useful passives to help me unlock tank abilities while still being able to solo survive through the story. It’s so slow to kill anything. I run/stand for so long, swinging that sword and chopping up my enemies over and over again, blasting them with chaotic magic, and it seems like I’m just slowly bruising them to death. I switched to elemental/shotgun for a more DPS oriented build and that seems wiser. It still takes a while to face down at-level mobs, though.
It’s like we’re all pawns, no matter how badass we get.
Upgrade system using fodder? No thanks, hate those systems. Most of the time they eventually end up getting tied in with “convenience” cash shop items.
Pretty apparent to me that the game is going to get P2W real quick.
i guess this means we can stop pretending tsw is not vertical power curve wise.
It always was?
yes it always was but people pretended otherwise somehow. idk how but that’s how it is. >>