GDC: Trooper Hands-On & TOR Game Play Impressions

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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 slot 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.

Comments

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  • #91 Loekii
    How 'twitchy' were the abilities?

    Were you just hammering hotkeys as quickly as you could, or was twitch not a important -- ie you would just bottleneck so to speak?
  • #90 Loekii
    "but received an error along the line of "you do not have the armor proficiency to equip that item."

    I am hoping that this gear 'Proficiency' is built up, so that players cannot simply buy their way to the top of the gear pile, without actually having to do the content, so to speak.
  • #87 Drobu
    Hey everyone, long time listener first time poster here. Question. You stated that abilities can be used based upon action points, are abilities on the toolbar dark, meaning you can use them, till enough points are accumulated?
  • #88 emlaeh
    Yes, the icon darkens if you don't have enough Action Points to perform the ability or not in range to do so.
  • #83 RogueJedi86
    Here's a question: when you opened the map, what did it look like? Was it the same blue outlines of the minimap we've seen, or a more fancy artful map like WoW's? Or was it something else entirely?
  • #84 RogueJedi86
    Aw, no answer. :(
  • #85 emlaeh
    We answered this in this week's podcast.
  • #79 Macer
    I'll donate my video camera inside a pinto hat so that we see demo footage.. ;)
  • #86 emlaeh
    It was pretty similar to the PAX footage, but I think I was in a different area of Ord Mantell.
  • #76 L'innommable
    Great article from you guys.
    I like the way you present the things. This made me laugh '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'
    But it also proves that you guys go further than the other usual testers, them who wouldn't have thought about testing how to die and the resurrection process. This is just an example; you are the best at covering and going in the deepest shadows of game mechanics; expected from Siths.
    A shame I'm not American, I would like to see how things would go playing on the same servers as you.
    Anyway thanks for this article, and I guess without Darhater, the craze wouldn't have been so high for Swtor.
  • #72 jeyhu
    The Trooper is looking like a very fun class to play. A solid Ranged type but not a glass cannon as they can dish and take a bunch of damage. Also I guess they'll have Battle Commands, probably Squad Leader type buffs. This class and its story are making me almost want to just say fuck the Empire side. If it weren't for the majority of my close gaming friends going Imperial, this class would definitely be my #1 choice.

    I really hope they eventually allow either faction switching or add an Imperial Commando class for those of us on Empire's side that would like this type of gameplay.
  • #65 Hobowan
    One thing i missed while re-reading the 1st page and the description of the troopers abilities was a statement about what the maximum number of action points the trooper (and other classes probably) can collect was. If I had to guess I would say it's probably 100.

    No matter how many you can collect, it seems a bit odd to me that some skills only need 1 AP, others 60 while the main AP generator creates 2 AP every 1.5 s. This would mean you can create 40 AP in 1 min.

    The numbers seem a bit weird to me, especially if i compare the gain- and sink-abilitys relative to each other. Perhaps explaining how you played the trooper could shed some light. Thanks in advance :)

    This of course is obsolete if the 60 AP tooltip was indeed a typo. If so, I would still be interested in the maximum AP you could generate.
  • #68 Caliber
    I would go with the typo hypothesis.

    It would seem pretty broken if it took over a minute of gathering AP to fend of a melee class. Also, if the limit was 100, I could forsee Troopers just spamming Rifle Grenade once they built up any amount of AP.

    The Fatman - PvP - East Coast

  • #66 emlaeh
    There weren't any numbers on the bars, and we didn't have access to a combat log.
  • #63 Xavier
    I think the big difference in DH's coverage versus other media outlets is focus. DH focuses on and reports on what's being shown. That's why we get info about the agro zones, the trooper abilities, and how big and detailed Ord Mantell was. Meanwhile other outlets chose to focus on what wasn't there. IE, pvp, endgame, crafting and space. That's not reporting. That's an op-ed piece.

    We all know that BioWare has not publically discussed these topics, it's not news anymore. What was news was the Trooper demo and what info you could glean from that. I think IGN, Gamespy, Gamespot, MMORPG, and Massively would all do well to remember that. You don't need a trip to Lucas Arts to rail upon what we haven't heard about, you can do that because it's Wednesday. When you get invited to Lucas Arts to play a class, the rabid fan base, desperate for any info, would love to hear about what actually happened. Not what didn't.
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