Recent reviews by Mefu

I played TSW since 2012, stopped after I hit lvl cap and finished transylvania. Returned for issues, but never progressed to Tokyo. I liked crafting a new build every now and then and try it out with my character, but did not do anything else particularly in TSW. For me, story/lore/world in this game is the best within all games I played even though it is a MMORPG which is a genre not really known for good stories. I will not write a in-deep review of story because I am lazy and I do not know how to do it without spoiling.

What I am writing though is an invitation to the players who are interested in story of Secret World but not really want to sink time in an MMORPG. If you are interested in MMORPG aspects such as raiding, gear grinding, PvP etc, I would say go and find a better MMORPG. I would not say SWL sucks in those aspects but there are so many other MMORPGs out there which focus on those aspects and do it well, why not play those? On the other hand, if you just want to enjoy a good story, and continue experiencing updated content, and not bother with having the best gear in game, follow to the next paragraph.

Main point of this rework, in my opinion, is making game easy for players who wants to just enjoy story. Combat is dumbed down, sure, but it also means it does not get in your way. You cannot mess up your build with such a simple combat/skill system. Gear leveling system is also not a stellar system but again if all you want to do is play story, you do not need to min/max how you build your gear or think hard about it. Most story missions are going to be easy and if you do all quests you will be mostly overleveled, and thus nothing will block your progress. Dungeons which also plays a part in story are stupidly easy to do in story mode. You will still need a group of 3 people but it does not require any roles of tank/healer/dps. You can do it with a little care for mechanics of the dungeon. Summarizing, if you want to play an RPG with a good story, this game will not require you to spend time at anything else than story.

Once you reach the end of the story, only thing remaining to do is AP/SP/gear grinding and you can simply choose to not do it and wait for new story content. I have no proof or Funcom did not promise it but I do not think new story content will be blocked away from people who did not do any grinding either skill or gear wise. For example, next story event which will connect to introduction of Tokyo called "Whispering Tide" will not have any level requirements, and your character will be automatically buffed to required level of strength while doing that content.

Concluding, people who want to check out story and world of Secret World, I would say give SWL a shot and enjoy the story. Play it as if it is a single player game with occasional multiplayer(story dungeons) or a co-op game if you want to go through story quests with friends. In the end, you can decide whether you would like to grind gear or not.

P.S. I did not write anything about major problems of this game such as monetization system, skill trees, combat etc. That does not mean I do not have any problem with it, but I believe they are good enough to not prevent people from enjoying story. If you want info about those other aspects of game, I am pretty sure many people will write about it so you can just read those.