This week, I thought I’d share my impressions of the Iokath daily area now that I’ve had some time to explore the zone and get used to the dailies. I’ve maximized my reputation on Republic side and am closing in on finishing Sith side.
Overall, I’d say it’s… okay. I like how SWTOR has handled daily areas in the past. In truth, I personally consider them weekly areas, since completing the weekly quest is the main incentive, and I like not feeling the need to revisit the Black Hole or Section X once I’ve knocked off the weekly. Iokath, however, isn’t like those other areas. The first thing you’ll notice is that to complete the weekly, you will to need finish more quests than are available on any given day, so you’ll have to return to Iokath two or probably more times to complete the weekly. Moreover, the daily quests change every day, and some quests aren’t always available.
Personally, I prefer the type of weeklies we have in previous daily areas, but once I worked out how to approach questing on Iokath, I got into it. Basically, I’ll head over to Iokath, check out that day’s quests, and focus on one zone, typically either the docking level or the main expanse. I will grab the other dailies, but keep them in my log so that when other quests in the same area are available, I can complete them all at the same time. For example, there are three different “kill X number of mobs” quests, and I try to bank those for when the walker daily is up so that I can kill four birds with one heavily armed stone.
Using this approach, it will take several trips to Iokath to complete the weekly; on the flip side, I spend very little time on Iokath on any given day as I only complete two or three related quests at a time.
SWTOR’s other daily questing areas, from Black Hole to Oricon have a flow to them. Completing a quest in one area naturally leads to the next, and the chain often climaxes with a tougher heroic or in the case of Ziost the dramatic reveal at the end of the scanner droid quest.
Iokath’s dailies, on the other hand, don’t really feel connected to each other structurally or narratively. Questing there means zipping around from one unrelated area to another.
I also want to mention a few other issues that I find frustrating. The Monitor daily is just a drag. That the Monitor droid’s most potent attack leaves you stunned and helpless is no fun. Nobody likes being stunned, and that I have to constantly inflict stuns on myself while playing as a Monitor, makes me avoid that quest all together.
Another issue is the mob density in the main expanse area. It is easily the most hazardous zone in the game to travel through. If you want to get to the droid factory or that one out of the way spot for the macrobinocular quest, you will have to fight lots of droids whether you want to or not. Given Iokath’s design, getting around without aggroing crowds of enemies is nearly impossible.
Lastly, it may just be my obsessive need to pick up all the things, but I hate that I can’t loot while controlling a droid or walker. I don’t know if it’s a design choice or technical limitation, but seeing all those loot beams go uncollected drives me bonkers.
However, it’s not all bad. Iokath itself is an impressive environment to explore and play in. There is a decent variety to the quests beyond standard killing mobs and clicking on objectives. And Iokath’s saving grace is the walker daily. Stomping around in a walker is absolutely a blast. You feel tough as crap, your weapons hit hard and all the big attacks are fun to use. I’ve seen some folks say that they won’t spend credits and shards to control the walker, but I think it’s totally worth it. It is the most fun repeatable quest in the game.
Finally I’d like to touch on the rewards you can earn on Iokath. The reputation vendor has the bare minimum of loot for sale: legacy armor sets, pets and mounts. What is there is indeed very nice; the sith faction’s armor set in particular is outstanding. Beyond that there isn’t much. No weapons, no decorations, no dye module recipes, no toys, and no companion customizations (how about Iokath themed customizations for HK, T7 or SCORPIO?). Likewise, the achievement rewards leave much to be desired. The Ziost and Star Fortress achievements rewarded decorations, titles and mounts, but aside from a quarter’s worth of cartel coins here and there, there isn’t any incentive to bang out those achievements once you hit the reputation you want. I’ve seen SWTOR do better in the past, so I don’t think I’m asking too much here.
As I said, I like dailies. I still enjoy questing on CZ-198 and Oricon, and I hope Iokath finds a place in the rotation of worlds I’m happy to revisit even years down the line. It’s not quite there yet, but I think it could be.
I hadn’t meant to spent a whole post on Iokath, but I’ll be back to translating Aurebesh soon!
Update
The patch notes for game update 5.2.2 were posted a couple days after I wrote this post and I was very pleased to see this note on the list:
Players can now loot enemies while in other forms while on Iokath, such as the Mouse Droid.
The beams will vex me no more! NO MORE!