SW: The Old Republic Part 5

[kirottu]

 

 

 

 

There will not be a new planet and there is no increase to the level cap with this expansion. We really wanted to focus this expansion around space off of rails where you get to fight your friends (and enemies!) 

 

To that point, there will not be any Space based PvE content with the Digital Expansion. It is only going to be PvP.

 

 

I really should cancel my sub.

 

I really should sub.

[Hassat Hunter]

The space-stuff sounds awesome.

And coming on a date when I got tired off regular space as it is ingame.

 

Subs can enter december, prefs like me in january and f2p in february.

So I get guinea pigs testing and bugfixing it for me too! Who says preferred status isn't the best current status of membership of TOR?

 

As for gifts, yeah, the spam is pretty silly. Atleast it makes more sense in TOR being a MMO-credit sink, and useful for trading and such, giving me tons of money from the GTN somehow. It's totally undefendable in Dragon Age though.

[Hurlshort]

If they are going to devote resources to the space aspect of the game, they should get rid of the minigame feel of it and make a real space game where you travel from planet to planet, mine resources, and have quest hubs.

 

I will not be subbing any time soon.

[Gorth]

I would recommend Ego Soft's games

 

More seriously, I think it would involve a major rewrite of core aspects of the game if you wanted that kind of "freedom". Remember, this is at its heart a Bioware game. They want you to experience the story they have prepared for you, not being into the whole "emergent gameplay" thing (just guessing, but they probably assumed the multiplayer aspect would sort out that bit).

 

That being said, it would be nice if they replaced the current space missions with more freeform equivalents, simply by not being on rails. Give you your objectives and let you actually control your craft as you fly around and try to accomplish them.

 

A nice (and probably very expensive to implement) feature would be to actually have a bit a "space" around each planet. Arrive and depart at hyperspace points somewhere in orbit and allow you to travel between ports, orbital stations and jump points with those things you can do in between (like fighting, trading, bantering, showing off your latest paint job/flashy gun/killmarkings etc. just like when meeting in a planet location.

 

It doesn't really "add" anything, but it could provide a feeling of space not being an afterthought. If you don't like it and is not engaged in combat, there is always the quick travel option.

 

There are so many things they can do with space. I hope they get together and come up with an idea for a comprehensive PvE space expansion some day.

 

At the moment, between my trooper and my bounty hunter, I'm grinding the heroics and the Ascension Barrier/Impossible Sector mission to work up enough reputation for the hot shot pilot suit. I really want to put my smuggler girl in that. My trooper is not as well equipped yet though, because some of those crafting materials are a pain to come by.

[Raithe]

I actually find myself skipping most of the heroics on any planets. Unless I happen to run into a group and do a couple. But I don't really put that much effort into it.

[Nepenthe]

I actually find myself skipping most of the heroics on any planets. Unless I happen to run into a group and do a couple. But I don't really put that much effort into it.

 

I kind of had to do it with my imp agent, with the result that in the pre free to play days I started lagging behind in levels badly (since I couldn't get flashpoint groups either, even as a healer). On my server at least, there seemed to be about 15 years average age difference between imps and pubs (10 vs 25)

[Hassat Hunter]

I usually do the H2's (since, always leveling with zbyl), skipping the H4's though... not worth the time and effort to gather a team.

Might do them solo extremely overleved just to get the story-element though, but they're generally pretty bland and/or non-existant.

 

I got maxed space rep somehow (even with 50% compared to subs)... so yeah, you can guess how many heroics I did . Too tired of them now. Let space PvP commence. Hopefully more fun than regular PvP.

 

And now I feel stupid, since you meant Heroic Space Missions, not heroics on the planet. I blame above posts

[NOK222]

Those Space Heroics are hard, even with all the ship powers. 

[Raithe]

Hm, if you've got all the level 7 ship upgrades, those high level space missions aren't hard once you get the rhythm of them. Sure, getting every single one of the "bonus" aspects is hard, but once you pick up the basic tricks completing the mission along with one or two of the bonus is fairly smooth sailing.

 

It really comes down to flipping the power converter back and forth and knowing when to use the EMP and such in the mission.

[Hassat Hunter]

Raithe is right.

Once you know "the patern" heroic space missions will turn 100% guaranteed wins once you just repeat said patern each time. Bonusses are pretty easy too, bar the fighter one on the space station defense mission.

 

Of course since they require you to repeat the same thing over and over and over again they can get pretty boring too once you know the trick to finish them. Since there's absolute no randomness to them. Which is a shame...

[Gorth]

Got my first (and only at the moment) HK-51 companion. I wonder why he came with a "spare" equipment bag with duplicates of his equipment and also his stats are rather confusing, a mix of Aim and Cunning

 

Anyway, mission accomplished and back to trying to finish the Bounty Hunter chapter 3. Currently on Corellia getting involved in some corporate warfare that would have made 'Syndicate Wars' proud

[Gromnir]

Got my first (and only at the moment) HK-51 companion. I wonder why he came with a "spare" equipment bag with duplicates of his equipment and also his stats are rather confusing, a mix of Aim and Cunning

 

Anyway, mission accomplished and back to trying to finish the Bounty Hunter chapter 3. Currently on Corellia getting involved in some corporate warfare that would have made 'Syndicate Wars' proud

hk equip bag was bio's simple solution for dealing with a bug: were relative common for hk to be unequipped when added to companion list. rather than fix bug, bio gave players duplicate hk gear to compensate those folks affected by bug. hk gets equal benefit from cunning and aim, which is convenient and confusing at same time. 

 

am liking hk assassinate ability to eliminate annoying silvers.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

I used HK pretty much non stop for a month

 

and then I got Treek

[Gromnir]

I used HK pretty much non stop for a month

 

and then I got Treek

treek could have an ability that allows her to nuke every enemy on a map and we still wouldnt use her as a companion... 'cause she is a freaking ewok. that being said, we is understanding that she is a very capable tank and/or heals. our heals toons prefer to use dps companions, but if we needed a heals comp, and treek were almost anything but an ewok, we would give her a shot.

 

ewoks were lucas' hobbits... only less english and less homosexual.  hmmm, maybe that is being redundant.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited October 13, 2013 by Gromnir

[Spider]

HK is the best companion for healers, treek is best for dps and tnaks, pretty much. Healers may sometimes prefer a tank companion (makes hard fights easier, but also makes them take forever), so treek is decent there as well.

[Gorth]

At lower levels, companion matters less IMHO. At higher levels, I started pairing them up and focus on which companion I wanted to keep upgraded with quality gear so they could pull their own weight in a fight (and not just "mop up" as they had been doing so far). My commando healer prefer Tanno Vik for his tanking capability and sometimes Yunn if survivability is less an issue and just need to clear areas faster. Similar thing for my powertech, using Mako if I need to survive prolonged fights, Gault if I need to clear areas and feel confident I'll survive the fights for a while.

 

As for Treek, Gromnir pretty much summed up my sentiments. I think I mentioned once previously in this thread, as a young man I used to be a Star Wars "fanboy", that is, right up until the middle of the third movie (when I started wondering if this was a poorly written episode of 'The Muppet Show'). Then I realized that the Star Wars I knew was dead and when the Ewoks showed up, I seriously considered walking out of the cinema. That kind of deep seated, admittedly completely irrational hatred for a character concept just makes it a no go. It could have come free with your ship like the ship droid and it would never get a place in my party.

[Hassat Hunter]

I pretty much have Treek for the convo's.

Can't go wrong with teammate conversations.

 

But aside from that... yeah.

[ShadySands]

I can understand your anti-Ewok views and concede that you are all better men than I. My personal feelings about Ewoks fell to the wayside and my inner powergamer won out

[Gorth]

I can understand your anti-Ewok views and concede that you are all better men than I. My personal feelings about Ewoks fell to the wayside and my inner powergamer won out

 

I'll bookmark this post for when the Gungan companion comes out...

 

Edit: Because I forgot the smiley making it sound snarkier than intended.

[NOK222]

 

 

I'll bookmark this post for when the Gungan companion comes out..

 

NO! YOU JINXED IT

[Maria Caliban]

I'm on Corellia as well right now.

 

It's just so visually boring, I can't wait to get off it for Illium or Makob.

[Nepenthe]

I'm on Corellia as well right now.

 

It's just so visually boring, I can't wait to get off it for Illium.

 

Ilium redefines boring.

[Spider]

Yeah, Ilum is awful. Visually I like corellia more, but I'm not a huge fan of the area design. Too many roadblocks forcing you to take long paths around your intended target to get anywhere.

 

Makeb, on the other hand is much better.

 

I suppose running the Ilum quest chain once is a good thing in order to see the games storyline though. And it's a fairly quick affair after all.

[Raithe]

Illum kind of does the "small Hoth" visual side, but has some semi-interesting missions.

 

Corellia does the grim, brooding, "war-is-hell", city damage vibe. But is just such a grindy-piece of suck mapdesign and storywise that I loathe it to the abyss.

[Gromnir]

we never gave corellia much of a chance. first toons had already hit level 50 cap before getting to corellia, so we kinda rushed through the planet doing only the class quests. subsequent toons were, for a time, pvp-centric and our goal were to be hitting 50 so we could spend our war zone comms-- start level 50 with an elite war hero mainhand, etc. actual class stuff were an afterthought when we were doing pvp. then the double xp weekends come along and Gromnir decides to level some additional toons, but quickest way to level (after they nerfed pvp xp) were to spend the couple hundred thousand and get the +30% flashpoint xp perk. so, we did dozens o' flashpoints and nothing but critical path class quests. those 1-3 hour xp boosts coupled with double xp weekends had us blitzing content.

 

...

 

am suspecting that we has seen less of corellia content than any other planet. 

 

from an aesthetic pov, we think ilum is a better snow planet than hoth. the thing is, ilum dont have much to offer. is only a few quests and as they come after end of main story questline they feels like afterthought. the initial open-world pvp on ilum were poorly conceived. tegardless, is no more point to doing pvp on ilum. gree event is not even happening monthly at this point. if we had only 1 50-55 toon, we might do ilum dailies, but the payoff for ilum is relative bad. no weekly like black hole, section x or czerka. no legacy like makeb, czerka, section x or oricon. resources gathered on ilum is all level 50 'stead o' 55.  is just no good reason for us to go do ilum save for during gree.

 

HA! Good Fun!