One of the finest MMORPG's to date.

It's a shame that it hasn't gotten the credit and traffic it deserves.

The only problem I had with the game was the combat - which I felt very bored with.

Originally posted by asmkm22
Combat is dull, at best, and frustratingly repetative, at worst.  They went to great lengths to talk about how many skills there are, but the truth is, only a select few are really useful, and very few are interesting.  End result is a game with great atmosphere, and decent story, but uninspired gameplay that bogs down the pace.

With the freedom to create any deck you like and use every ability and every weapon, you also have the freedom to create dull, repetitive decks.  If you don't put in the effort to find something you like, you'll end up with something you don't.  Once you understand how the abilities can work together to make combos, combat becomes pretty damn exciting.  Lots of movement, dodging, and different abilities that can be swapped in and out as the situation requires.  If you are just spamming the same 2 abilities you are "doing it wrong."  The learning curve is a little steep, but the payoff is worth it:

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

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Talonsin

For me, the combat just sucks.  I basically stand there in one spot and click on attacks and the animations are just not very good.  I dont even feel like I'm doing anything.

 

TSW has  action based combat with lots of movement going on. Almost every boss-fight in the game requires you to constantly move while attacking.

That's why, not a single skill in TSW roots you in place, every skill allows you to move around and dodge enemy AoEs or other abilities.

Given the above and the fact that it's very responsive, and that you can switch your abilities 'on the run', I consider the combat in TSW to be among the best.

People confuse combat with animations, the combat in TSW is good, it's just the animations that suck. The animations make the combat look shitty, when in reality it's not.

Originally posted by lilwins

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Talonsin

For me, the combat just sucks.  I basically stand there in one spot and click on attacks and the animations are just not very good.  I dont even feel like I'm doing anything.

 

TSW has  action based combat with lots of movement going on. Almost every boss-fight in the game requires you to constantly move while attacking.

That's why, not a single skill in TSW roots you in place, every skill allows you to move around and dodge enemy AoEs or other abilities.

Given the above and the fact that it's very responsive, and that you can switch your abilities 'on the run', I consider the combat in TSW to be among the best.

People confuse combat with animations, the combat in TSW is good, it's just the animations that suck. The animations make the combat look shitty, when in reality it's not.

Agreed on that -- animations could be improved (I happen to think they are good), but the combat system itself -- the wheel, the class/level free system is solid and a lot of fun.

Originally posted by lilwins

Originally posted by Thillian

Originally posted by Talonsin

For me, the combat just sucks.  I basically stand there in one spot and click on attacks and the animations are just not very good.  I dont even feel like I'm doing anything.

 

TSW has  action based combat with lots of movement going on. Almost every boss-fight in the game requires you to constantly move while attacking.

That's why, not a single skill in TSW roots you in place, every skill allows you to move around and dodge enemy AoEs or other abilities.

Given the above and the fact that it's very responsive, and that you can switch your abilities 'on the run', I consider the combat in TSW to be among the best.

People confuse combat with animations, the combat in TSW is good, it's just the animations that suck. The animations make the combat look shitty, when in reality it's not.

for some people not others.. really depends.. i didn't mind the combat overall as I love putting together builds.. my main beef with the combat system is just about everything is based on the builder/finisher dynamic and when you add that to only having 7 actives it limits what you can really do with the build.. this is fine for a couple weapons but after the 6th weapon it does get a bit stale.. also i'm fine with only 7 actives as well but just about everything revolving on builder builder builder finisher is where things start to get less interesting..

For me the game just lacks in epicness. It's a decent game and well deserving of the new business model but I quit playing it eventually. There just wasn't a pull to log back in. The stories and quests are good, they just don't grab me and pull me in. The combat is good, but it just doesn't get my adrenaline going. The world and lore are good and a nice change of pace, but it just doesn't make me want to explore it. I log in, play for a bit and go "Hey that was neat" but nothing beyond that. 

Theres nothing wrong with the game, it really is a good game, there just isn't anything epic about it. 

Thats the problem for me at least. I like it, I'm just not really compelled to log in often and not really a game I run to my friends with and try and get them to play. 

I really love the game, But there are a couple of things that i have issues with:

The god damn equipment manager, I mean my god i reported that back in 0.7 that the thing is still Toast and im still raging.

It's not really a world, Its a set of playfields. If the game was seemless it would be so much better even tho the system as it is now works.

Raid or Die: That's what it really comes down to in the end, Negated are your choices along the way its the final destination along with pvp.

Also, We could of had some great character builds with the skill wheel but we dont because the content is designed with a very narrow set of skills in mind.

Honestly, I don't think you're alone OP.

However, I think the problem w/ TSW is that it's a really solid game, but a HORRIBLE MMO. Many people enjoyed the investigative / story elements of the game. As well as enjoyed (briefly) the skill-wheel and dungeons the game provided.

However, as with all games, the issues arrise once you get down to the games mechanics. The combat, by most accounts (my own included), is pretty horrendous. It's clunky, unresponsive, and is poorly utilized within the game (there are quite a number of skills that would be awesome if the game would encorperate more varied skillsets / AI amongst it's monsters.

The PvP is pretty awful. Ques are bad, 3faction pvp devolved into base trading a long time ago. They allow people to Q up as tank / healer / dps, but a lot of people exploit this feature to get faster ques, then switch back to dps once inside.

The game basically, at it's core, is another dungeon-grinding gear progression game. Which sucks, because it has some really nice ideas, and a VERY interesting setting. Kind of a missed opportunity imho.

I like games with world class faction conflict.This game seemed made for it...yet its rarely mentioned as a feature.

I love to craft. Does the game even have crafting ?

I've been think of returning to the game, but last time I played around the release date I ran some end-game instances and people were elitist as fuck. The problem with this is that I'm not going to sit on some forum and copy the lastest cookicutter build in a game that's all about customizing because I happend to not meet their standard on some fucking combat parser or w/e they are using.

And neither am I going to sit on youtube and study the boss patterns before hand spoiling the whole experience because a bunch of assholes want to finish the instance in a couple of seconds.

I would return if I had enough friends playing it but so far theres like one friend interested.

I love the atmosphere and the skill building, the back story and the characters in the world but the rest really isn't very appealing.

I find the game is to much of a chore to play..  The game is more frustrating then fun to me... 

Originally posted by Talonsin

For me, the combat just sucks.  I basically stand there in one spot and click on attacks and the animations are just not very good.  I dont even feel like I'm doing anything.

Same.  I mean, combat is the main reason I play these games.  I want to feel like I'm having a fight, not just generating number clouds (hence why most of my characters are melee in MMOs), and even before I played TSW, I saw videos of the combat and it didn't look like attacks really connected or even had good sound collision sound effects.  I thought it was just because the game wasn't finished, but I experienced the same disappointment in-game.  Apart from that, the theme didn't really interest me, but I'd definitely like to see more games that aren't fantasy.

Originally posted by Shadanwolf

I like games with world class faction conflict.This game seemed made for it...yet its rarely mentioned as a feature.

I love to craft. Does the game even have crafting ?

More class conflict coming in the PvP game -- open world flagged PvP is in the works.

Yes, there's crafting -- it's an pattern assembly system:

http://www.endgameguides.com/TSW/Crafting

Originally posted by Sideras

I've been think of returning to the game, but last time I played around the release date I ran some end-game instances and people were elitist as fuck. The problem with this is that I'm not going to sit on some forum and copy the lastest cookicutter build in a game that's all about customizing because I happend to not meet their standard on some fucking combat parser or w/e they are using.

And neither am I going to sit on youtube and study the boss patterns before hand spoiling the whole experience because a bunch of assholes want to finish the instance in a couple of seconds.

I would return if I had enough friends playing it but so far theres like one friend interested.

I love the atmosphere and the skill building, the back story and the characters in the world but the rest really isn't very appealing.

You might want to check out the cabals or some of the newbie nightmare groups starting up.  Agartha is pretty much where all the leets hang out, but the other groups are much more casual about it:

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=62768

http://forums.thesecretworld.com/showthread.php?t=63415

I tried the game early on, so my opinion might be a bit skewed.  The theme and questing were awesome.  I love the horror feel.

Unfortunately, there were a couple of things that just killed the game for me.  One, the animations.  I don't feel like I'm part of the world; it just makes everything look silly.  Not that I want the game too serious, but there are other ways to lighten up the game than the part you have to look at all the time.

The other thing is the skill wheel.  When I first checked it out, it looked really awesome.  Then I realized that there are certain skills that are kind of softly forced to be used together.  I don't remember everything, but, for instance, I really only like playing in melee combat in most games.  I also thought the life drain skills looked cool.  Then I realized you could only use them with an assault rifle which I have no interest in using.  Might seem small, but stuff like that kills it for me.

If it weren't for these things, I'd definitely play.  The genre is awesome.  I really hope this game stays strong and continues with updates.  I'd like to get back to it at some point, but once my issues have been resolved.

Originally posted by Doogiehowser

Originally posted by tom_gore

Two reasons.

1. Not very mainstream theme.

2. Lack of content.

 

As in? enough quests to take you to rank 13 smoothly. End game is typical of themepark..dungeons and raid. If you say TSW is lacking features i would agree. But not once i felt while playing TSW that i am running out of missions.

Lack of content as in I played through all the missions and dungeons in the game within the first free month, and I didn't even rush through them. Replayability is practically zero as the few faction-specific missions are not enough to go through all the missions again, as fun as some of them are. It's not a problem of TSW in general, but more a problem of themepark games in general.

Don't get me wrong. I loved every bit of it, but when I finished the last missions, along with the first Issue I was just left thinking "now what?" without a real answer. PvP in TSW just doesn't interest me (and I've heard it doesn't interest too many others either).