SW: The Old Republic Part 5

[Gorth]

You do know the achievement is shared between characters? So kill or capture a henchman with one char and none of the others will need it? Just wondering since you said your main went for the achievement when it's a group effort

I think in the beginning, it was because it was "new". Then I wanted the heavy armour and needed the reputation. Then it just became an OCD thing...

 

Yes, I know the achievement is across the legacy

 

What I meant was, the first week it came around, my main guy could go to all planets involved (except Ord Mantel for obvious reasons, being an 'imp'). Not all hench men spawn on capital worlds which were the easily accessible ones for low level characters. Alderaan and Voss was off limits for most of my characters, so he did the travelling the conventional way and the rest did the "grind".

 

In the end, I just wanted enough contracts to not having to do henchmens at all next time it comes around then see if I can't do more of the kingpins instead.

[Raithe]

I kind of like the idea of all the Reputation stuff. But I find that it doesn't actually engage my OCD levels.  I think it's because so much of it is stuff that you can only do once a day with a single toon. So to achieve any serious levels, you pretty much have to spend day in day out going through your toons to just repeat the same missions over and over. Unless you're happy to spend 9 months plugging away with just one or two characters...

 

Hm, what do you have to do to capture them alive? So far I've run two henchmen missions with my Bounty Hunter and it was just a pretty straight fight to the death.. Or have I missed something blindingly obvious?

[Spider]

You have. Get them down to 10% health (5 for kingpins) then click the icon next to the quest, ie activate quest item.

[Gorth]

Note that if you have too many active quests, that one might not actually be visible on-screen. Happened to me on my very first henchman. Second time, I had removed a number of quests (grinding some space missions of all things for the fleet commendations) and suddenly it was visible with the little white 'freeze' icon. It's greyed out and unusable when the target has more than 10% health, but once it drops down to or below, it changes colour and becomes selectable. Just make sure henchman is also your active target (and not companion or henchman goon or something else).

 

Once discovered, it saved my butt in a few fights that was getting too close to comfort. Sort of an insta-win button when cutting it close. I also had it happen a few times that I took the henchman down with it and the adds or DoT effects killed me after taking him down. Doesn't matter, still counts as a win.

[NOK222]

Got into the game first time in months, changed servers and got picked up by a big guild. Did a KP ops to get back into the swing of things. 

[entrerix]

i switched from this to FF14

 

i think i'll switch back in a few months because i can't play any mmo for too long without getting tired of it

[Inyourprime]

Fixed the problem I had with this game. I upped my Sage to 29 and I think I might give this subbing thing a go for while. Getting tired of being denied the ability to use artifacts.

[Gorth]

Depending on how many ingame credits you have and the availability, you can sometimes find those kinds of unlocks on the GTN.

[Inyourprime]

I know. I check the GTN as much as I can and I even managed to buy 2 extra character slots. My main reason for wanting to subscribe is the capped XP for FTP/"preferred" players. It's starting to become a grind.

 

And I read you'll get the expansion pack for free if you subscribe, so there's that too.

Edited September 20, 2013 by Inyourprime

[Raithe]

I have to admit, I'm getting a little annoyed with the change to the patch/game loader these days.

 

I think I'll just pop on for a quick check, sort out some crew skills or wotnot.. and then it has a short patch update. So it takes a minute to download. That's fine. It then spends 20 minutes "Re-organising files" "Verifying files" taking another 30 seconds of download, then Re-organising and Verifying those files...Then updating.

 

By the time it's over the planned 10-15 minutes of poking around in the game for a break is gone and dusted and half an hour is spent with the bloody thing just doing that.

[Gorth]

Speaking of patching... what the heck are they doing to space missions???

 

At least they removed the big floating rock they had added to one of the beginner missions, but seriously, so much was broken after the last patch and not a squeak in the patch notes about even intending to update anything. Latest hotfix fixed the most critical issues, but health bar is still missing under all boss ship, shield generatos and priority targets and yellow circles are now persistent around targets, even if not priority trargets anymore (in the past, they would change from yellow to faint red if you had completed the mission/bonus that required those targets).

 

More to Gorth's wishlish for future updates:

 

A remove skill button (after getting a bit more experience with crafting, I realize that the vast majority of (crafting) skills are something I wont need and makes the list take forever to expand/scroll though. Not to mention Synthweaving and Armourmech shouldn't have the ability to learn schematics for the "other" side. Got some surprises int he beginning crafting nice looking (in the preview) armour, emailing it to the alts, putting it on... and it looked completely different!

 

Yes, I would like my lightside guy to unlearn darkside skills and the other way around.

 

Don't get me started on Artifice and the laughable number of implausible combinations of enhancement mods

 

Just an observation, may or may not be the case, but do they every now and then sneak in little embellishments that don't figure in patch notes? I could have sworn that when I started playing, the Nexus Cantina (on Dromund Kaas) didn't have a little street cafe with people sitting in front of it.

 

Edit to add: My commando is still stuck halfway through level 49. I think the up and coming weekend is going to be dedicated to play a few flashpoints. Might have to queue specifically (commendations be damned) for Battle for Ilum, as my Powertech missed out on that one when he could still queue for normal mode flashpoints.

[Guest Slinky]

I have to admit, I'm getting a little annoyed with the change to the patch/game loader these days.

 

I think I'll just pop on for a quick check, sort out some crew skills or wotnot.. and then it has a short patch update. So it takes a minute to download. That's fine. It then spends 20 minutes "Re-organising files" "Verifying files" taking another 30 seconds of download, then Re-organising and Verifying those files...Then updating.

 

By the time it's over the planned 10-15 minutes of poking around in the game for a break is gone and dusted and half an hour is spent with the bloody thing just doing that.

They added something called bitraider to the game, that apparently allows new players start playing before the game has been fully downloaded while downloading the rest in the backround. Also that seems to cause crap like that happen for some people.

 

There is a way to get rid of the thing here, but while it does fix those verifying and organising stuff while patching, you do have to download the entire game again once.

[Hassat Hunter]

Don't forget they broken the lvl 7 laser (again) as well as the improved power change thingie (the 1 and 2 button).

Maybe they are preparing for the Secret Space Project, and as usual, are very bad at what they do and break everything?

 

You can remove crew skills. In the menu (with N) just press the X after the skill. You cannot remove combat skills, but you can simply remove them off the taskbar. If more people knew that they shouldn't have removed the oh-so-cool 'stun attack' :/ I still miss those.

 

Oh yeah, those enhancement mods are hell. Some are even clones. Wish BW would just merge the clones, make it all easier to manage. Not sure why they aren't...

 

They do add fixes or 'tweaks' unlisted in the patchnotes. Sometimes postive for us, sometimes negative. Sometimes breaking stuff which makes you 'wtf?' since it's not related to anything in patchnotes.

[Spider]

In regards to the enhancements, I think it's mostly a database structure issue that they don't merge them. When they've done sweeping changes like that in the past, I've always gotten the impression it was fairly time consuming and complex. So leaving the duplicate enhancements is probably because it's not worth the developer time to fix it.

 

I think it's worse with cybertech though. Like the Czerka droid armorings, for both the dps and the tanking version there's two of each piece (ie motor) and they're all identical. So they virtually have twice as many recipes as they'd need (and they're kinda crap since they're underbudgeted compared to reverse engineered parts or moddable gear).

[Raithe]

I definitely have noticed a change in those high level spaceship missions. I used to be able to spend 5 minutes running through one just for a break from everything else and having a bit of fun with the music blasting out and shooting up enemy fighters and completing the mission and usually getting most of the bonuses.

 

The last week I've just given up in frustration because I keep getting smashed to a pulp by the halfway point on every one I've tried playing.

[Hassat Hunter]

Yeah, I would have just figured if they merge clone X and Y they simply give people having Y (the least one in the game) X. Trained X and Y? Refund. Got blue Y, green X? Blue X. Both blue? Some components to make up for the loss training both.

 

But yeah, I can see that being database extensive. And tricky with their patching incompetance.

 

It's also one of the many reasons several people want full new versions (like 2.5) to be simply pure bug-fixes for a change. A chance to finally clean the mess, rather than they add even more to an already instable and poluted mess they do now, and just making actually fixing stuff harder and harder and more complex, and even less likely to happen down the road.

[Gromnir]

Speaking of patching... what the heck are they doing to space missions???

 

At least they removed the big floating rock they had added to one of the beginner missions, but seriously, so much was broken after the last patch and not a squeak in the patch notes about even intending to update anything. Latest hotfix fixed the most critical issues, but health bar is still missing under all boss ship, shield generatos and priority targets and yellow circles are now persistent around targets, even if not priority trargets anymore (in the past, they would change from yellow to faint red if you had completed the mission/bonus that required those targets).

 

More to Gorth's wishlish for future updates:

 

A remove skill button (after getting a bit more experience with crafting, I realize that the vast majority of (crafting) skills are something I wont need and makes the list take forever to expand/scroll though. Not to mention Synthweaving and Armourmech shouldn't have the ability to learn schematics for the "other" side. Got some surprises int he beginning crafting nice looking (in the preview) armour, emailing it to the alts, putting it on... and it looked completely different!

 

Yes, I would like my lightside guy to unlearn darkside skills and the other way around.

 

Don't get me started on Artifice and the laughable number of implausible combinations of enhancement mods

 

Just an observation, may or may not be the case, but do they every now and then sneak in little embellishments that don't figure in patch notes? I could have sworn that when I started playing, the Nexus Cantina (on Dromund Kaas) didn't have a little street cafe with people sitting in front of it.

 

Edit to add: My commando is still stuck halfway through level 49. I think the up and coming weekend is going to be dedicated to play a few flashpoints. Might have to queue specifically (commendations be damned) for Battle for Ilum, as my Powertech missed out on that one when he could still queue for normal mode flashpoints.

you wanna unlearn individual crafting recipes? hmmm. dunno how to do that. our synthweaver has so many pointless recipes that it is a bit ridiculous-- removing clutter would be nice, but not vital. some synthweave recipes were useful... for about 3 months.  when crafters were the only ones who could be adding augment slots, Then we were getting use from synthweave. nowadays, the only synthweave we do is augments.  as we have no guild, having one o' each crafter is helpful, but if we only had 1 character or were in a guild, am doubting we would bother with any craft other than biochem-- reusable nanotech stims for the win.

 

before level 55, battle o' ilum were our favorite hardmode fp. could skip every boss but the final, and most mobs were avoidable. could do a complete battle o' ilum fp run in ~20 minutes. 

 

as for space missions... havent done a space mission in months. just too boring to be stuck on rails for entire battle. space were a great way to earn creds, but nowadays we is more likely to do the czerka dailies/weekly for a few extra credits.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorth]

Yeah, too much "overdosing" on space missions kills the interest in it. Sort of a nice time filler though, if you just want to wait 5-10 minutes for a companion to finish their 2 hour crafting mission so you can send them out the door again for another hour or two. At lower levels, the xp is a nice boost (and part of the reason my toons were significantly over levelled for their story missions). Now, it's mostly a challenge thing, doing the weekly for the heroic space missions (on the now two toons who qualifies for it).

Yeah, two. It happened eventually and my commando turned 50. At least this guy hadn't turned 50 before being halfway through Belsavis. Spend the weekend playing a number of flashpoints with various toons in various level brackets, from Hammer Station to the Foundry. Sadly, didn't get my commando through a FP. Damn timezones, when it gets early evening here, most US west coast dwellers have gone to bed

Ah well, next weekend, I think I'll start with that guy in the GF queue.

My main guy again got distracted yet again, never seeming to continue his story on Voss... back when hunting world bosses on Belsavis and Section X, I must have run across a guy that gave me a quest to collect HK parts. So, went to Theoretika and solved that one, although I only found 6 out of 7 of the bonus crew logs. I think I might have to look at a walkthrough and see which one I missed. Thought I was very thorough, but apparently not.

Went to Tattooine and wasted more than an hour in Outlaws Den searching for the merchant. Turned out he wasn't marked as a merchant, but was standing *next* to one that was marked as merchant.

Thought it was hilarious though, checking his stock, being typical Jawa he sold mostly overpriced "grey" junk and then the junk part of course that I really wanted. Looks like I have to go back to Outlaws Den and spend a lot of time digging. Seriously, WTF Bioware? Why the constant insistence of putting quest stuff inside that hole, needing to jump through hoops afterwards to get rid of the &^%$# PVP flag

 

Other than that, Theoretika was actually quite nicely done. Gave a bit of a "Dead Space" vibe

[Maria Caliban]

I have returned to the game.

 

I have a level 50 Jedi Sage that's been lying fallow since February of this year. Just ignored it and started a Chiss Imperial Agent. Up to level 31 and am enjoying myself.

[Raithe]

I keep doing bits and pieces at the moment rather then focusing.  I've got a Sage at 46 who's about 1/3 of the way through Belsavis. My Smuggler and Inquisitor are both at 54, I've got my Trooper hovering at 19 and an Imperial Agent at 20. The rest I've left at 50 having completed their class stuff.

 

I've been playing the game since it first came out and I still haven't actually done any of the operations. I should probably get around to trying the queue for one at some point....

[ShadySands]

I'm taking a break at the moment because I'm tired of doing dailies

 

I have too many characters

55 sorc

55 mara

48 guard

47 shadow

38 sin

33 vanguard

32 merc

27 op

27 slinger

25 sorc

?? sniper

[Gromnir]

Thought it was hilarious though, checking his stock, being typical Jawa he sold mostly overpriced "grey" junk and then the junk part of course that I really wanted. Looks like I have to go back to Outlaws Den and spend a lot of time digging. Seriously, WTF Bioware? Why the constant insistence of putting quest stuff inside that hole, needing to jump through hoops afterwards to get rid of the &^%$# PVP flag

 

 

am thinking we mentioned we were in a pvp guild for a short time-- lethal dose 50. one reason why we quit were their childish fascination with griefing folks during world events such as ilum gree or the hk parts scavenger hunt.  ld 50 folks would camp out 'round the jawa in outlaw's den and slaughter all comers. were something like three days when hk parts "quest" started that only time a non ld 50 player could get outlaw's den part were from 1:00 am to 7:00 am eastern time.  were kinda a big server-wide sigh o' relief when server transfer occurred and most ld 50 folks jumped to a pvp server. 'course all that means is that instead o' having one pvp guild that could grief folks at will, there is a half-dozen ld 50 wannabees vying for honor o' being the biggest jerk guild on-server. 

 

gree stuff were worse. need guardians? HA! flag self and purposefully jump into some unsuspecting imp's aoe attack. imps would return favor on some random and unsuspecting pub player. whole cycle o' grief and stoopidity.

 

...

 

am not a fan o' the world events that has pvp elements.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorth]

I'm too "new" to have tried the Gree stuff yet. But I do indeed see the potential for ruining other peoples day if they do such design "features".

 

Speaking of "features", I'm still trying to work out how one of my toons came into possession of both a Black Talon *and* an Esseles off-hand shield generator in his inventory. I can't remember when I noticed it the first time, but something tells me it shouldn't really be possible.

[ShadySands]

I've gotten Esseles drops while running Black Talon before and they are also sold by a vendor outside the spaceport (imp) and in the underground shop area near the Senate building (pub) on the Capital worlds

[Spider]

Thought it was hilarious though, checking his stock, being typical Jawa he sold mostly overpriced "grey" junk and then the junk part of course that I really wanted. Looks like I have to go back to Outlaws Den and spend a lot of time digging. Seriously, WTF Bioware? Why the constant insistence of putting quest stuff inside that hole, needing to jump through hoops afterwards to get rid of the &^%$# PVP flag

 

 I don't think you can dig up that part, iirc it's only purchasable from that jawa. Also, the pvp flag will go away by itself if you spend five minutes in a safe zone, ie your ship.