SW: The Old Republic - Episode VIII (May RNG Be With You)

[Blarghagh]

 

Haven't posted these in a while. A few more show my yours I show you mine

 

I know it's a matter of taste, but I actually like swotors art style. The slightly "cartoonish" look just ages better than attempts at photo realism.

 

Oricon has some really nice vistas, even when visiting it for the 337th time...

 

My sentinel girl watching the lava flow (from Jedi Covenant)...

 

 

It's raining space ships, adding to the already abundant wreckage...

 

 

Lieutenant Hamilcar patrolling the Balmorran grasslands, enjoying getting out of the heavy industry areas (from Harbinger)

 

 

Bormu... I really hate Bormu (the big critters in the background). There is an ingame achievement for killing a gazillion of them. Hands up if anyone ever did that one.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Well having to deal with the RNG one too many times I find myself only doing wzs and ignoring ops unless my guild needs a dps. Have discovered that I don't really like Sentinel too much and prefer Guardian(particularly Vigilance) and Scoundrel(Scrapper) for my melee classes, so perhaps that explains my reluctance to do much with my only current 65.

[Gorth]

Well having to deal with the RNG one too many times I find myself only doing wzs and ignoring ops unless my guild needs a dps. Have discovered that I don't really like Sentinel too much and prefer Guardian(particularly Vigilance) and Scoundrel(Scrapper) for my melee classes, so perhaps that explains my reluctance to do much with my only current 65.

Story mode operations have been nerfed so badly, it's likely only the "Master & Blaster" (keeping Master's tank alive) and Underlurker (testing dps skill) that pose any real challenges for pug groups. My new juggernaut tank did his ops inauguration with a dread palace run with no less than 4 'noobs' in the group and only 4 of us were level 65 and it went smoothly (and maybe RNG was blessing us and giving us good noobs, because they actually listened to my long and winding explanations before each fight as well as during the fights). As long as you are geared correctly and at whatever level you are currently at, bolster will usually get you to a point where you carry your own weight. Yes there are always extreme cases in team composition and bad things can happen to groups (everyone being under geared, no one knowing their class, people just being morons pulling everything and no single player having a clue about fight mechanics etc.)

 

Edit: I love the 'smack' sound when a scrapper lets his fists fly in a fight...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I was talking about drops, I rarely get anything good and slogging through with a bad group isn't really pleasant. Last run I did I got a 216 boots, another 216 boots, and a dread holocron decoration. Probably going to stick with wzs for a while, which I've had some success running Watchman instead of Combat on my sent.

 

And I like that sound too. I find the class more fun than my sent, which largely seems to excel at getting stunned and killed.

[Gorth]

After a completely botched launch, the game finally came online last night, just in time for me to go to bed. First thing i noticed in the morning... crafting is now completely fubar. Both my armourmech and synthweavers have lost (access to) their crafting interface. Nothing to show there. On the upside, increasing stack size to 9999 freed up fully half of my legacy stores (had multiple stacks of the most popular mats).

 

Haven't tried chapter x yet (yesterday was the only day where i really had time).

[Raithe]

I did a quick run through. I think the new chapter takes about 2 hours. Some story aspects grow, most of it being caught up around doing one "mission" with Kaliyo as part of recruiting her. The story side is fairly decent, but the gameplay is lots of "go to location x and do y, then repeat again on the other side of the map". The really annoying bit I found with my Assassin was all of the scripted combat points that kick in even when you're in stealth.  It doesn't even take you out of stealth. You can waltz past one mob, and suddenly another runs out and attacks you while you're stealthed.

 

The HK-55 addition provided some of the usual HK amusing lines, so that helped balance out the general feelings. - Not that you could actually use him as a companion during the new chapter, but the small intro in getting him has a few chuckle moments.

[ShadySands]

Got every companion on my assassin now except for Pierce because I have no will to do PVP right now

 

Chapter 10 definitely doesn't hold up as a single episode but wasn't bad running through all 10 chapters at once. The more I think about it I'm not sure any of the chapters would actually hold up had they not released them all at once unless maybe they released one weekly like LOTRO does

[Gorth]

I found the Blizz recruiting mission more fun than chapter 10.

[marelooke]

Got every companion on my assassin now except for Pierce because I have no will to do PVP right now

 

Chapter 10 definitely doesn't hold up as a single episode but wasn't bad running through all 10 chapters at once. The more I think about it I'm not sure any of the chapters would actually hold up had they not released them all at once unless maybe they released one weekly like LOTRO does

 

You're forced into PvP? Ugh, I don't think I've enjoyed MMO PvP since the Burning Crusade... (and consequently, avoided it like the plague)

[ShadySands]

Yeah, it's an alliance alert so not a completely cosmetic companion like the cartel market ones but not integral to the story either

 

So far I'm 13/20 on getting him but it's just not fun for me and I dunno what it is about PVP but it tends to draw a certain crowd that I can't say I enjoy spending time around either

[ShadySands]

Chapter 11 done, not much to say about it and no alliance alerts or anything to provide a little more content. Seems like the fighting tournament was supposed to be the star this time around and that got pushed back again

 

Super buggy too

Edited March 8, 2016 by ShadySands

[Gromnir]

Yeah, it's an alliance alert so not a completely cosmetic companion like the cartel market ones but not integral to the story either

 

So far I'm 13/20 on getting him but it's just not fun for me and I dunno what it is about PVP but it tends to draw a certain crowd that I can't say I enjoy spending time around either

am finding that swtor appeals to us most after we take an extended leave of absence.  has 'been 'bout a month since we played... and am likely to wait a couple more months before resuming.  am not part o' a raiding guild, so lengthy absence don't hurt us much.  we did the black talon/esseles grind on a bunch o' characters so we got multiple maxed affection companions-- at least one per every craft and gather option. we got a couple old characters with 90-100 valor on both empire and pub side, so we got the pvp companions w/o having to do any additional pvp.

 

*shrug*

 

am gonna wait for a bit more new content... and then am gonna wait a bit more for stability to take hold after all the predictable bugginess is exterminated/lessened.

 

am knowing shady ain't a fan o' poe, but Gromnir is just now finishing white march 1 & 2.  we will likely play through poe one more time... which will take considerable time.  we also finally purchased da:i in december 2015 for $19.  got all the dlc as part o' the goty edition.  am figuring that will take us a month or so to finish. we also bought an xbox console over the christmas holiday, and fo4 were included as part o' our bundle.  am not too enthusiastic 'bout starting fo4, but it's sitting there in the shrinkwrap, staring at us.  oh, and we genuine intended to try the wasteland 2 director's cut, but we didn't get too far into the game before distractions interveined.  will likely give wl2 one more try.  the newest incarnations o' shadowrun and xcom2 is also on our list o' games we intend to play, once they have time to fully mature and stabilize.

 

...

 

heck, it could be july before we get back to swtor, and we wouldn't feel bad 'bout that.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorth]

Looks like they ninja patched the bug that had hit most operations with "stationary" bosses. Instead I found a new feature in Dread Palace. At the end of phase 1 of council fight, when you send the first 3 masters back to their thrones, Bestia will hop down again, with full health while you are fighting Calphayus. Not a biggie, just send her packing again. Only problem here was...

 

 

...Had the most unusual Dread Palace run yesterday on my cathar merc girl on Red Clipse. If anyone had told me I would stick around for 3.5 hours of Dread Palace without rage quitting, I would have said they were crazy. I only just started gearing her up and wanted to find a dps slot for a Dread Fortress run (being GF ops of the day). Instead this guy was looking for all roles for Dread Palace and I thought, ah what the heck I hadn't finished Oricon anyway so it wouldn't make much difference (apart from a few dozen crystals). First thing ops leader asks me when I joined was: "Have you done Dread Palace before?" Me: "Ummm.... yeeees?" Him: "Great!" and poof, ops lead was handed to me. Turned out that none of 5 guys in the group before me had ever done it. Eventually we ended up with a full group and only one guy had seen the inside of the Dread Palace before.

 

Let it not be said I'm a quitter or give up easily

 

So I agreed to give it a shot and see if I could guide this group of guys and girls through their first full run of Dread Palace.

 

As luck would have it, they were all a bunch of great people. Good listeners, adapting and correcting mistakes in subsequent tries and we never wiped more than twice on a fight, succeeding in at least the third try.

 

Took a *lot* of explaining and typing on my part (no TS or mumble) and marking both enemies, floor areas etc. spending up to 15-20 minutes before a fight and then 5 minutes more if we wiped to explain what needed changing (and often a lot of very fast, typo filled typing during the fights).

 

Some things are just easier to explain after people enter and have a go at it first, as they at least have some reference points then.

 

As said, good listeners and their sheer joy and enthusiasm at succeeding made it worth sitting through it. One of my more pleasant memories from the game despite it taking so long

[Gorth]

Yeah, I know. I should post them in the general pictures thread but what the heck...

 

My Jedi Knight "Wyldric" on Red Eclipse (Guardian tank)

 

The Lord of the (Urban) Jungle

 

 

There is no emotion... just resignation when you realise your "selfie" shot aggroed the World Boss and I'm dead in about 5-10 seconds.

 

[Janmanden]

Can't solo World Bosses?! That lord kinda stinks.. No Wonder, it's a JEDI ffs!! (they don't have Lords...not even on Dark V.. kinds sucks)

 

It was going so well with Alliance missions.. Solo this, solo that.. and then suddenly forced into Multi-player and big Groups to do World Bosses to get some useless Trandosian (from the dreadful Consular Arc) to join you.. Leaves a big scar on my single-player experience x16 (legendary double living-legend) with an unfinished quest on my sheet. And then some other event that I am still puzzled about.. involving Lokin..

[Gorth]

Can't solo World Bosses?! That lord kinda stinks..

I think I've soloed most of them except Nightmare Pilgrim, Lucky and whathisname the bigger of the two on Hoth

 

But those were the days before level scaling and world bosses were a joke farmed by highlevel players who didn't give a damn about people trying to get a group together at the intended level. I actually do like it better how works now (alternatively, those bosses should have their own instances and scaled the bosses to the players)

 

Long time no see Jan, hope things are Ok in your little corner of the world.

[Raithe]

Can't solo World Bosses?! That lord kinda stinks.. No Wonder, it's a JEDI ffs!! (they don't have Lords...not even on Dark V.. kinds sucks)

 

It was going so well with Alliance missions.. Solo this, solo that.. and then suddenly forced into Multi-player and big Groups to do World Bosses to get some useless Trandosian (from the dreadful Consular Arc) to join you.. Leaves a big scar on my single-player experience x16 (legendary double living-legend) with an unfinished quest on my sheet. And then some other event that I am still puzzled about.. involving Lokin..

 

To be fair, you can solo that.. not by going after the world bosses but by finding a bunch of the Jagga-wotsit variants of some of the normal Hoth creatures on Hoth. It's slower going and won't get you quite as high as a bunch of world boss trophies, but that's the other option.

[Gorth]

New chapter teaser...

 

http://youtu.be/LU8QUKZzRa4

 

Call me an old cynic, but I couldn't help laughing when I saw it, thinking if this follows the pattern of everything related to 4.0 so far, our first mission is to go hunting for the Emperors news clothes, as he will likely show up without any at first

[Gorth]

I finally got around to play through the latest chapter yesterday evening on one of my many alts.

 

Must say I was pleasantly surprised. Not sure it holds up after repeated playthroughs, but it was quite entertaining the first time.

 

The Alliance Alert recruitment mission was fun too, who would have thought all that time playing Zork would pay off?

 

Only downside was, I couldn't care less about the new Dashade. Off to the freezer with him again, waiting for the real Khem to come back. I'm sure he misses his "Little Sith".

[Gorth]

Not sure if anyone besides me still plays this game, and I think I mostly do it because 1) I found a bunch of nice guys in a guild (pub side) on TRE and there are still a bunch of missing achievements

 

Only completed the latest chapter before today on 2 alts (out of 12 who started the expansion). Only 1 alt got the unknown and completely irrelevant and unasked for Dashade (whose name i can't remember). Completed all 6 star fortresses on 2 of the 12 and can't be bothered to ever see the inside of a star fortress again. Not sure if any of the 10 still needing to do so will ever make it past the Firebrand chapter (for me the absolute low after the Asylum bit, which held the previous record of being mindnubingly boring grindy).

 

If there had been any *noticeable* differences between classes or choices that had actually mattered, I might have felt differently. As it is, it's mostly just the fun of doing the occasional ops runs, sometimes in the guild, sometimes pugging it. Even that is wearing very thin now, as there is no middle ground. SM ops is way too easy and HM is too far removed from SM. It's like the difference between doing Esseles at level 14 and HM Battle for Rishi at level 65. None of the experiences of the former prepares players for how you need to up your game for the latter.

 

Ah well, when servers comes online again, I guess 1 of my 2 alts making it this far will try out the latest chapter...

[Raithe]

I've been dabbling along on and off.

 

I have to admit I'm pretty much just spending time on two alts really. The rest I seem to log in just to tidy up their in-game emails..

Although I have my Sith Inquisitor working through all the fresh new chapters I can't seem to psych myself up to get any of my other toons to start it.

[213374U]

Not sure if anyone besides me still plays this game, and I think I mostly do it because 1) I found a bunch of nice guys in a guild (pub side) on TRE and there are still a bunch of missing achievements

 

I just can't be arsed to log in anymore. I renewed my sub for two more months but... nah. And that's despite the fact that I finally found me a guild to run HM ops with, where I basically have a guaranteed spot as main tank.

 

And it's not MMO burnout either, I just got back to DDO... I don't know. The game just feels stale. The terribad episodes and broken ranked PVP sure don't help.

[ShadySands]

The new chapter was better than most and you can actually use stealth this time around. Sure it makes the chapter even shorter but also much less repetitive, if you're stealth class that is.

 

Didn't stick around for the eternal championship, maybe next month

[Raithe]

I think the things that's annoyed me most with most of these new chapters is the amount of scripted mobs appear and attack you even if you are in stealth. So yes, having a chapter where that didn't happen was a nice change.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

PVP is pretty badly broken. Much as I like my guildbros and guildsiss, unless you're running a few classes ranked is gonna be bad. I really hope they rework certain specs and give classes new dcds, but I'm almost certain they won't anytime soon.