When the game launched, there were a lot of gushing reviews, but few wanted to talk much about combat.  Rather, it was, the game has combat, but let's go back and gush some more about the cut scenes that you'll soon learn to skip once you realize that the conclusion is "please go kill 10 rats for me".  No one seemed to be willing to defend the game's combat as anything better than just another mediocre WoW-clone, and the fans mostly wanted to focus on frivolous details.  So I wrote off the game as yet another mostly-combat game with bad combat, and therefore, a bad game.

Last night, I was playing Uncharted Waters Online, and the conversation turned to various other games.  Mostly it was about upcoming games (Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World), but one person in the company (basically a guild) said that he was playing SWTOR.  I brought up what I said in the above paragraph about the game sure looking like a mostly combat game with bad combat, and he insisted that, while he didn't like WoW, the combat in SWTOR was pretty good.

So I asked what made the combat any good.  In order for combat to be any good, success and failure should depend heavily on what the player does in combat, and not mostly be a check to see if your level and gear are good enough to continue.  At first, he scrounged around with, if your gear is too low level, you die.  And if your party composition is bad, you die.  I objected that that's determined before you enter a battle--and a pretty good description of combat in a typical game where the combat is awful.

But then he came up with something different.  He said that at the level cap, he has 17 skills that he uses a lot.  And he insisted that he needs them all.  Not just occasional gadget skills that you need here and there.  But if he tried to get through a battle by picking five skills and spamming them, he'd die horribly, no matter which skills he picked.  And yet, while using his 17 main skills intelligently, he hardly ever dies.

So I have a few questions.  First, is that an accurate description of combat in SWTOR?  If the game really can regularly force you to make complicated decisions on which skills to use, with victory or failure depending heavily on finding the right ones for the situation, then that could make for a pretty good combat system.  Still, I have this nagging suspicion that he's simply never played a game with good combat, and merely thinks SWTOR combat is less bad than some others he's played.  Land combat that is less bad than that of UWO isn't exactly high praise (UWO isn't mostly about combat, so poor land combat is a forgivable flaw).

Second, if a game forces you to use a lot of skills, then how does it do it?  Guild Wars manages to force you to need all of the skills on your skillbar by having cooldowns, so that you can't just spam one skill over and over.  But needing to frequently use 6 or 7 skills is a long way from regularly needing to make use of 17.

And third, if the combat is any good, then why doesn't anyone want to talk about it?  TERA forums, for example, have a lot of talk about the game's combat system.  There seem to be two major wikis for SWTOR, of which has as its main combat page a stub that hasn't been updated this year, and the home page of the other doesn't even have a link to details about the game's land combat system at all.

The combat in SWTOR is ok at best, its not boring but its not that exciting.

Like all tab target games , there are a couple skills you use a lot more then other.    But you do get a lot of skills to use.

IMO too man, you dont have enough places to put them, and sort of overwhelms you with trying to organize and find them during a fight. Some classes have a very simple rotation while others are faily complex. And some are just too tedious to be fun.

But I personally do think that most of it comes down to gear really, I dont find this game made any advancment into the combat system over WOW.

I guess it depends on the class, but as a Sorcerer I was not using 17 different skills during a fight.  I did use more as a Jugg though.  Many of the jugs skills though seemed like carbon copies of WoW's protection warrirors, and they are known to have a lot of procs and such, at least when I played it. 

For my sorc, there was a lightning skill I spammed that proced other spells to cast for free or insta-casts.  Wasn't too terribly exciting tbh.  I enjoyed the combat at first, but like many tab targetting games I got bored pretty quickly.  Overall I would say the combat for a 'themepark' type game is not too shabby.  I did enjoy more than say Rift.  It's still very WoW-ish though.

For me, combat was so routine and easy that I just stood in one spot and only had to point and click. I didn't get into the PVP side of it but think they made PVP kinda useless ATM anyway.

Everything I did was the same smash and grab mechanics. I didn't have to put much thought into combating anything for the time I played and is one reason why I no longer am.

Nope.

Depends how you feel about tab-target combat.  It's your standard WoW combat with no auto-attack, but more complex combat animations.  If you are are tired of tab-target combat, you won't enjoy it.  If you are fine with that type of combat, it's the best tab-target combat I"ve seen.  

Combat is actually one of the game's main strengths.  It's as good as you can get for the type of tab-target combat that it is.  

IT could be better now, but when I played, it felt delayed and not too reactive....To be fair though, I do think they have improved it, from what I have read since then though....But it wasn't anything special, and I would say disappointing.

I don't like it as a mmo, but I got my $ worth, a lot would say they didn't, but I got a month out of it, kept waiting for the 'opens up', and other things people said happens, but once I hit 35-40, I figured I was lied to, or their version of opening up is pretty lame.

Combat is geared to the mouse clicker types, which is fine for PVE but annoying to those that like to PVP.  PVP combat by definition blows based on that.

Only reason to play SWTOR is the unique way they deliver story.  Once you blow through the story (took me less than a month as I typically don't like to do alts) then you might as well unsubscribe:  all other MMO features are pretty poor.

Originally posted by Xthos

IT could be better now, but when I played, it felt delayed and not too reactive....To be fair though, I do think they have improved it, from what I have read since then though....But it wasn't anything special, and I would say disappointing.

I don't like it as a mmo, but I got my $ worth, a lot would say they didn't, but I got a month out of it, kept waiting for the 'opens up', and other things people said happens, but once I hit 35-40, I figured I was lied to, or their version of opening up is pretty lame.

 

same here. i would describe combat as slow, unresponsive, and clunky at best. especially when you start doing some fast paced pvp you really start seeing some crappy delays and, at times, some actions even fail to work. one example of this is the crouching ability, there are quite a few places where it just doesnt work. the targeting is also quite annoying, many times it just doesn't want to target the guy right in front of you, on occasion i've even had to use the mouse cursor to target enemies because my "target nearest enemy" button just woudn't pick up the enemy right in front of me..... just a lot fo shit like that.

WoW's combat feels incredibly smoother and more responsive.

i would give it a 7 out of 10.

I'm not necessarily against tab target combat, but a game does need to do something to make combat interesting.  I liked combat in Champions Online, partly because of blocking, and partly because Cryptic took the approach that if they've only got five seconds worth of interesting combat decisions for you to make, then they'll let the battle end in five seconds and then you can move on rather than making you wait a full minute for the battle to end.  I liked combat in Guild Wars for a variety of reasons, several of which boil down to the need to actively counter what the enemy is doing.

What I don't like is combat like WoW, where you pull something, and then basically wait a minute for the battle to end without really having to pay attention.  Then you repeat as many times as necessary to finish the quest and go turn it in.  Maybe you have to spam a few skills, but there isn't much in the way of interesting combat decisions that force you to pay attention.  WoW combat is mostly a level and gear check.  If you're high enough level with good enough gear, you win, and if not, you lose, and there isn't much area between those.

When the game launched, there were responsiveness issues, particularly in PvP combat when there was a high density of players in one area.  Most of those problems have been corrected.  Responsiveness  isn't much of an issue any more.  The abilities fire off when they should, although I still get the occassional animation "hiccup" on casted abilities. It still fires off, and the damage is still applied, but the animation will get clipped every now and then.  

As far as the comparison to WoW combat, it's the same general type of combat, but you can't begin a fight in this game, go make a sandwich, and still be alive when you come back.  There is no auto attack, so if you aren't physically pressing buttons when the global cooldown finishes, then you aren't attacking.  Instead of the auto-attack, what you get are longer combat animations that fill in most that of that GCD gap.  So in most games, you hit your "light saber strike" attack, and your character will take one swing and that's it.  In this game, you lightsaber attack may consist of a couple different moves chained together in the same animation---maybe a forward slash followed by a backhand attack.  One attack, but a longer animation that fills in that GCD gap.  It takes a little getting used to at first because it "feels slower" while "looking" faster and more action-oriented, if that makse sense.

Combat feels a bit different in this game, but doesn't take long to get used to.  And it definitely has a more visceral feel to it, particularly in melee, than other tab-target games.  Very fun combat animations, very cool abilities, improved responsiveness (still don't think it's as crisp as WoW, however), and the fact that most fights have you fighting at least 3 mobs at once.  It's a solid 8 out of 10 IMO.     

It's one of the worst aspects of the game. Take WoWs combat, dumb it down and make it so that you manually have to click a button to auto-attack.

If it was I would still be playing. it's the worst aspect of the game by far

It's the best combat since WoW but still not as good as WoW because of ability delay, though I love how they removed Auto Attack.

Originally posted by Cthulhu23

When the game launched, there were responsiveness issues, particularly in PvP combat when there was a high density of players in one area.  Most of those problems have been corrected.  Responsiveness  isn't much of an issue any more.  The abilities fire off when they should, although I still get the occassional animation "hiccup" on casted abilities. It still fires off, and the damage is still applied, but the animation will get clipped every now and then.  

As far as the comparison to WoW combat, it's the same general type of combat, but you can't begin a fight in this game, go make a sandwich, and still be alive when you come back.  There is no auto attack, so if you aren't physically pressing buttons when the global cooldown finishes, then you aren't attacking.  Instead of the auto-attack, what you get are longer combat animations that fill in most that of that GCD gap.  So in most games, you hit your "light saber strike" attack, and your character will take one swing and that's it.  In this game, you lightsaber attack may consist of a couple different moves chained together in the same animation---maybe a forward slash followed by a backhand attack.  One attack, but a longer animation that fills in that GCD gap.  It takes a little getting used to at first because it "feels slower" while "looking" faster and more action-oriented, if that makse sense.

Combat feels a bit different in this game, but doesn't take long to get used to.  And it definitely has a more visceral feel to it, particularly in melee, than other tab-target games.  Very fun combat animations, very cool abilities, improved responsiveness (still don't think it's as crisp as WoW, however), and the fact that most fights have you fighting at least 3 mobs at once.  It's a solid 8 out of 10 IMO.     

    I would agree with pretty much everything here and add two things.  One, that the weapon collision definately ups the feel of combat for me.  I was so tired of no one ever trying to block in other games.  Seeing it done here is amazing.  Two, is the alternate animations I see a lot.  Depending on what abilities or actions you are doing it changes some of the animations to fit the action better.  You see it mostly with the Jedi and Sith, but I have seen it in the other classes as well.  Keep in mind though, it is still tab targeting, so if you don't like that system, you won't like SWTOR combat.  Personally, I have no problem with it.

    As for making you use your skills, it does it in a variety of ways.  One is cooldown times like most games use.  Another is situational abilities, but the situations tend to come up a lot.  Such as powers that only work if the target is held or stunned.  It can happen a lot, so the powers are still very useful.  There is also a necessity to use different powers based on the abilities of your enemies.  And then there is the fact that some abilities affect others, making them more useful than normal.  I have to agree with the person you were talking about in your OP though, just trying to use the same 5 or 6 powers against an equal level elite or especially a champion will most likely end with you getting creamed. 

Originally posted by plzignoreme

It's one of the worst aspects of the game. Take WoWs combat, dumb it down and make it so that you manually have to click a button to auto-attack. 

    OMG you didn't.  You did not claim it was dumbed down WoW combat and then go on to described how BioWare took OUT the most dumbed down part of WoW combat.  ROFL!

If you are comparing it to wow then it is more complex and requires more thought.  But then wow's combat is made for kids and very simplified.

The reason TOR's combat does not FEEL as responsive is because the damage and animations hook together (you usually only get this in single player games).  So there is sometimes a couple of seconds before the damage actually hits (depending on the animation).  In wow the damage is done the second you press the button and the animations are seperate, which is also why wow's animations clip very badly and you only get 3-4 per race.  Also melee weapons in TOR make contact with each other which can alter the animation.

Trust me my friend the combat sucks. I played a bounty hunter before i quit a month later. I liked the class story and stuff but in combat all i did was spaming one skill (tracer missile). Save your self the time and money and avoid this game if you arent a really super fan of the ip and even there you can get dissapointed.

I wasn't acctouly waiting for this game i just bought it out of boredom and hoped it will carry me to gw2 relese but even I with absolutly on expectations was dissapointed.

Maybe wrote more then you wanted to hear but it is my only post where i got vocal about the game, took the opportunity.

I'm a super fan of the IP.  Combat makes or breaks an MMO for me.  And it broke it here.  On the plus side, the combat is very flashy (not as slow as say EQ2).  You can click or use numbers for the combos.  I played Jedi and they did a good job of convincing growth from Padawan to Jedi.

In the beginning, yes there was delay from the abilities - this has been fixed and its very smooth.

When your skills get upgraded I hate the fact I have to travel to a "trainer" to upgrade.  Why cant I upgrade directly from the UI? Wastes time.

Besides combat, what killed it for me was it was extremely narrow exploration.  Really no world to explore and do other things, heard alderaan and tatooine were more 'vast' but quit before then in my high 20s.

Give the 7-day trial a spin and see for yourself

Originally posted by WhiteProphet

Trust me my friend the combat sucks. I played a bounty hunter before i quit a month later. I liked the class story and stuff but in combat all i did was spaming one skill (tracer missile). Save your self the time and money and avoid this game if you arent a really super fan of the ip and even there you can get dissapointed.

I wasn't acctouly waiting for this game i just bought it out of boredom and hoped it will carry me to gw2 relese but even I with absolutly on expectations was dissapointed.

Maybe wrote more then you wanted to hear but it is my only post where i got vocal about the game, took the opportunity.

I played a Bounty Hunter and quit a month later also, but it wasn't because of the combat.

I have to admit BH felt a little overpowered, but the combat itself was actually rather entertaining. If you played and enjoyed the combat in City of Heroes (whose combat I also enjoyed), SWTOR is more or less the same thing. Because of this, it does get old fast.

Sure you can spam tracer missile if you want to, but its hardly the most effective way to fight as a Bounty Hunter, especially with all the AoE attacks hunters get. Boostering enemies off of high cliffs or into bottomless pits never ceased to make me laugh as well...except that one time the bad guy somehow survived a bottomless pit and I was stuck in combat for a good while...I didn't laugh that time.

The only downside to the combat in SWTOR is that the enemies you fight are all pretty much the same. 90% of what you end up fighting are humanoids that either melee with light sabers/vibro swords, or shoot you from cover with blasters.