Beginner's Guide to Star Wars™: The Old Republic™

As a guy that has played the game for around 4 years, I understand that SWTOR can be a really, and I mean a REALLY overwhelming game at first (Sometimes even later on too). And this is mostly due to the game having a ton of systems and things that you can do, which makes it a great game to. Sadly, the game does extremely little to tell new players anything at all about these systems. In this guide I will do my best to try to simplify and explain the things you need to know as a beginner.

This also means that I won’t explain all of the systems in the game but instead only the things I feel a beginner should know about, and or focus on.

Here is the link to the video version of this guide on YouTube for those of you who prefer watching instead of reading! =D

MENUS

One of the things that you will probably notice immediately as a new player is that there are a shit ton of different menus. It’s basically to the point where if you accidently press any key besides (W, A, S, D) it will open up a new tab. Most of these different tabs are not ones you really have to worry about if you’re a new player, so I will just quickly go over the ones that are the most useful.

1.      Inventory

Your inventory can be accessed by default using the ( i ) key. Most people who play games know what an inventory is, but for those of you who don’t, this is basically the place where you can store items on your character, sort of like a backpack.

Whenever you buy something from a vendor or find something after looting an enemy you have just defeated, the items will go to your inventory. The items you find can most often be sold to vendors for credits, and if the item is armor or a weapon that you can use you can equip that gear by right clicking the item. If you find some new gear that is better than the stuff you are currently wearing a little green arrow will appear on that item.

If you are ever unsure about what a certain item is or does you can hold you mouse over the item and read in the text box what the item can be used for.

You can upgrade the amount of space you have in your inventory using credits or an item called “Unlock: Inventory Module” that you can buy for Cartel Coins.

2.      Character Sheet

Your character sheet can be accessed by default using the ( c ) key. This tab’s main use is to show the current gear you are wearing and also displaying some different information about your character, like how light or darkside they are. With both the character sheet and the inventory open you can easily drag and drop the gear you have in your inventory into the different item slots, if you prefer doing it that way :).

Some players (including myself) would also say that another very important feature of the character sheet, some might even say THE MOST IMPORTANT, is the Outfit tab.

The outfit tab lets you drag and drop different gear to change the look of your character without affecting stats. This allows you to make cool looking outfits for your characters without sacrificing having decent gear, and gives you an easy way to swap between them. Adding more outfit slots does cost a few credits but it’s not too bad.

3.      World Map

Your world map can be accessed by default using the ( m ) key. This is a very useful tool for navigating around the galaxy when you are doing the different quests. Places and objectives that has to do with your main class story and or the planetary storyline on the different planets will be marked with a purple color, meanwhile the extra missions and objectives will be yellow and green. If you would like to see all of the quests the game has to offer make sure to cross the box on the map with Exploration Missions, as otherwise you won’t be able to see those missions.

If you would like to always be able to see the map, there is an option to enable that in the bottom right cornor of your screen. There you can also click the filters tab and choose how much you want to see on your map.

4.      Mission Log

Lastly we have your mission log which can be accessed by default using the ( L ) key. This tab just shows you the different missions you have currently and allows you to choose whether or not you want to track them.

If you are playing with a group you can also share missions with your group members in here

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These are the 4 different tabs that I would recommend new players to use. Yes, there are many more things that you could do, but I am afraid that it would overwhelm people or stress them out so I choose to keep it to these 4 to begin with. Remember you can always dive into the other stuff when you feel ready for that :).

COMBAT

While Star Wars: The Old Republic is mainly a story focused game (atleast until you get to the endgame) there is quite a lot of combat in this game. Therefor I would like to help you get a basic understanding of how it works, incase it might be a bit confusing.

1.      Targeting

Everytime you want to attack an enemy you will have to target them first. This is done by clicking on the enemy with your mouse. There are also some other ways you can target enemies by using buttons on your keyboard, but I myself mostly use my mouse to do it.

2.      Attacking

Once you have your enemy targeted you are ready to attack them. Star Wars: The Old Republic uses an ability system to attack. This means that at the bottom of your screen you have different abilities that will do certain types of things (which you can always read about by hovering over the ability with your mouse). 

Each class has different abilities which gives them a unique feel. You will attack the enemy when you either press the button that’s associated with the ability or just click the icon with your mouse (I do a bit of both :) ). Some abilities require you to be in the correct range and many require a certain amount of energy, which leads to the next I will talk about.

Your energy bar is the one below your health bar and each class has a different way it’s energy works. Some classes like Jedi Knight and Sith Warrior has an empty energy bar to begin with, which means you have to use certain attacks to generate energy in order to use some of your other abilities. Other classes like some of the ranged ones start out with a full energy bar, which means that you are going to have to manage which abilities you are using in order to not run out of energy.

3.      Healing

During combat you will most likely lose some health during the fight. What’s cool is that every class has a healing ability that they can use whenever they are not in combat. This ability can be found at the very end of your hotbar when you first start. Doing this after each fight makes sure that you are ready for the next!

Combat is one of the things you can dive really deep into in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Luckily you don’t have to as a new player as most of the enemies you will be facing will be relatively easy. Learning the best way to fight with your class becomes more important when you do some of the group content in the game, or pvp. But like I said before, these are not things you will be doing as a beginner.

 

SUBSCRIPTION & THE CARTEL MARKET

I had to give this topic it’s own section in the guide as I feel like this is also a pretty big thing that is important for new players to be aware of. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a free to play game, or more accurately it gives you the ability to play certain parts of the game for free. This includes the 8 different class stories, which is great. However as a free to play player there are quite a lot of restrictions that limit the things you can do and obtain in the game. This means that If you want access to the full game you will have to subscribe to the game which costs around 15$ per month (monthly price is cheaper with yearly sub). Subscribing to the game for just 1 month will grant you life-time access to some stuff including the expansions, but this would probably need it’s own guide to explain it all.

Much like most free to play games microtransactions is the main source of income for the team behind the game, and this is what allows the game to keep running. This also means that a lot of the cool cometics items in the game, like armor sets and mounts, are mainly obtained through buying them using cartel coins (which costs real money). Sometimes you can also get those armor sets and stuff from other players, if you have millions sometimes even billions of credits. There are a lot of cool armor sets and cosmetics that you can obtain outside of the cartel market, even as a free to play player, I might make a guide on that if your interested :).

If you haven’t played the game yet and you are unsure whether or not you should subsribe to the game, by all means just try it out as a free to play player first and then decide after. However if you really like the game and you perhaps play it a few times per week I would recommend subscribing to the game, just because of the freedom it gives you and also to support the game.

 

+ BONUS TIPS +

For those of you who have come this far I would like to give you some extra tips and tricks that will make playing the game easier and more fun, as a thank you for reading this :) .

1.      Security Key (Free 100 Cartel Coins every month)

As a new player setting up a Security Key for your Star Wars: The Old Republic account is a really good idea early on. Not only will this help keep your account more safe and secure, it will also grant you 100 Cartel Coins every month for doing it, even with a free to play account! This is also really cool if you’re like me and take pretty long breaks from the game, as this will add up even when you aren’t playing the game. “Swtorista” has a pretty good guide for how to set it up on YouTube that I would recommend you check out!

2.      /Stuck

If you ever get stuck in an object in the game type /stuck in the chat to get out. Also if you see a friendly person type /wave in the chat because why not :D

3.      Quick Travel

Quick Travel is an ability which allows you to teleport to the different places instead taking a speeder or walking. The ability can be found by opening your ability tab by pressing ( P ), and going into the general tab. This can really save a lot of time when you are doing the different missions around the galaxy. 

With the newest update the devs now made quick travel cost a bit of credits so this may only be something you can do later in the game, depending on how many credits you have.

4.      Redo cutscene

If you accidentally make a choice in a cutscene that you are unhappy about, you can press the “esc” key on your keyboard to redo the cutscene. You can also press your “space bar” on your keyboard to skip forward in a cutscene. 

That's all for this beginner's guide to Star Wars: The Old Republic. I really hope you found this guide helpful and that you have a lot of fun with the game. 

May the force be with you!