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

[Humanoid]

My subscription (that one-time Mexican deal) ran out a couple of months ago and so did my desire to go on with the game. Not because of the lack of subscription mind you - mostly it was because going through the expansions felt completely pointless, and my co-op buddy thought the same.

 

My feeling now is that the personal motivations provided by the class quests are essential to getting through the game. I did get through the first expansion, and did the forced dungeons that form the beginning of the second one, and I started questioning why either my character or I as a player was bothering to help out these schmucks. So that was that: "because your faction asked you to" is patently lacking as a hook for characters who had a large range of possible motives before that point.

[Janmanden]

My subscription was cancelled yesterday, because I had a new set of creditcards a month ago and the one attached to this was retired. I mostly play for the single-player experience and I think it has become more of a bad habit than.. erm.. Well, anyway, I just spent the last month trying out new ways of dealing with equipment.

 

I had gotten used to use my army of crafters to fill out all 14 slots (and 7-9 of these with 3 mods and augments) every 4th level and it was a hell of switching characters, watching the game load/unload fifty billion times to research and pile ressources and work, work, work.. That month where I came back and realized that I could send those MK-2 boxes to my alts and equipping a new character with Rating 178, that was such a sweet relief to be absolutely carefree for 55 levels (still had to produce guns and shields, but still barely noticeable) and when BioWare/EA nerfed that I just couldn't be bothered by that old crafting scheme and started using the Gear from Armormechs and Synthweaving and it was another really nice and pleasant surprise that I could finally make complete sets of the same level and some of them were actually pretty cool looking (albeit too ugly on the Republic side except for a few sets from Synthweaving).. Not to mention that they were better than both Mods and MK-2 Awards until level fifty-something..

 

Strongholds have been there longer than I have noticed, because I.. don't know.. I didn't pay attention to the changes and noone was rubbing them in my face. Finally getting that Legacy Storage (and Cargo Bays and Modification station as well) was a really nice change and generally I had begun using the stronghold as a quick way of skipping straight from a planet to the ship or just phase in to switch, trade or store items and then back again. Really nice. 

 

I also went back to my first character ever on some European server I totally forgot about it. The game was suddenly challenging again because all the legacy bonuses and general combat preparedness doesn't follow the player from server to server. Of course your army of crafters is unique to the server, but I thought that the Legacy bonus was tied to my account.. Big surprise.. Having just crappy armor, no Army of crafters and no buffs or anything.. I spend the Lvl 60 token on Making a Empirial Sniper and got Armormech.. Didn't know that was a bonus.. But that token description is really off.. There is no way in hell that, any player with care and attention to detail, can complete the game without ending up with all his companions at rank 15 in general and at least one around rank 30, but with the Token they were all Rank 1.. Rank 1? Seriously?! Really????!! Not kidding??????!!! (and I could go on like this for at least two hours, getting bigger and greener every second until I would be .. Ugh, now I did it again.. and again.. Sorry.) But at least I got rank 500, or so, pre-made as part of the token bonus..

 

Token 60 Character.. It's nice in a way, but it feels more like a punishment somehow, because all your companions are rank 0 (1) and there are no conversation options to enjoy or improve that, you have no money and no ressources and no crafting receipts, the free gear isn't even on level and it cannot be sold - ever. And it doens't unlock whatever class you pick in the Legacy system except the Chapter 2 buff I think, which is just weird.. But all the story arcs are still open.. Basically you are just cut off from the only interesting part of the game for a quick level bonus. It doens't even work for a quick switch to the new .. erm .. *BLANK*.. *NULL*.. *DIV BY ZERO*..  Wow .. it's only been a week and I already forgot what the name of the latest addition is.. I guess it really is time to quit   

 

I had lots of fun with this game actually. Biggest, best and longest singleplayer game I've played in a very long time..  

 

-- edit added extra crap just for that crappy feel that is really neither wanted nor desired - why the hell did i do it - arffff--

Edited May 5, 2016 by Janmanden

[Gorth]

I think the level 60 token characters are mostly something for gold sellers. Instant level 60 sent off to high level planets for credit farming.

[213374U]

I think the level 60 token characters are mostly something for gold sellers. Instant level 60 sent off to high level planets for credit farming.

 

Been to the heroic area in Section X lately? It's hilarious: totally deserted except for a bunch of level 65 juggernauts with gibberish names and empty legacies... except for the currency achievements.

 

They just don't give a **** anymore, do they?

[Gorth]

No, it doesn't seem like they give a **** anymore. Hate to admit it, but I got no shame. Joined the bandwagon of farming EV HM for 224 gear this week where it was the "highlighed" ops. It's such a joke. The easiest ops in the game, similar in difficulty to some "tactical" (i.e devoid of any tactics) flashpoint, dropping the top line gear. Didn't win much in the way of 224 gear, but the consolation prizes were no less than 3 220 relics, so not too bad after all. Still, it makes any gearing pointless when you get it all handed to you just like that, no skill or effort required

[Raithe]

I logged in saw the alert for the new contact, got into the Arena match thing. Got to about the 7th round before real life interrupted and I had to log out. Expecting to be able to resume it at that point... Logged back in a day or so later and found the whole thing resets so I have to go through each damn combat again. Got to about the 7th round again...and real life interrupts.

 

I'm really not sure if I can be bothered to restart it just for an extra contact/companion.

[Gorth]

I'm really not sure if I can be bothered to restart it just for an extra contact/companion.

I think Bowdaar just requires 10 victories, not necessarily in a single session. Just remember to 'check out' at the terminal before logging out, if you want credit for the won rounds.

Made it to 7th round in my first attempt on a tank, but simply didn't have enough dps to beat little gut before the arena was completely trapped. Tried it on a dps alt and made it to 10th round. Need to work out how not to get killed when entire floor is electrified

[Janmanden]

I logged in saw the alert for the new contact, got into the Arena match thing. Got to about the 7th round before real life interrupted and I had to log out. Expecting to be able to resume it at that point... Logged back in a day or so later and found the whole thing resets so I have to go through each damn combat again. Got to about the 7th round again...and real life interrupts.

 

I'm really not sure if I can be bothered to restart it just for an extra contact/companion.

 

Would be nice if there were some auto-responses in this thread like...

 

{

 

I logged in <event>, got into the <area>. Got to about the <level> before real life interrupted and I had to log out. Expecting to be able to resume it at that poitn... Logged back in a day or so later and found the whole thing resets so I have to go through each damn combat again. Got to about <level> again... and real life interrupts.

 

I'm really not sure if I can be bothered to <insert action> just for a(n) <insert result>.

 

}

 

That would really save me a lot of time.

 

That's one of the things that also keep me away. It's a nice game and all, but it doesn't handle interruptions very well. It also happened quite often during conversations, that I would be afk for a few minutes, then come back and continue, clicking responses and then suddenly get kicked for being afk, because the game fails to register mouse movements, which I guess, technically speaking, isn't proof of being back at the keyboard.. erm, because.. mouse. D'uh?! You can't just do a part of a flashpoint solo, leave or be kicked by a zealous server, and then come back later to pick up from where you left off to finish it. Those intro missions to Fall of Revan, I think I repeated those five times, before I was able to stick around long enough to move on and put them behind me, because something was always interrupting me.

[Gorth]

The latest chapter wasn't too bad either. Darvannis was a nice setting and while it is just a big cauldron, it felt less cramped than previous mini-planetoids. Not quite as fun as Vette and Gault, but that was a funny pair. Torian was always the "Meh..." guy for me, only ever being my companion when trying to get the 1000 kills achievement (my bounty hunter alts using mostly Blizz, Mako or HK-51 depending on their role).

 

 

Getting so bored with the existing ops now, that I'm looking more and more at other games though. Keeping up my subscription for now, but it sure as heck is not for the sake of the expansion. The episodic content is simply not strong enough to bridge the gap between releases (out of 12 alts that started, only 4 made it past anarchy in paradise which for me was an all time low and only 1 has made it all the way through so far, most being stuck at the star fortresses).

Note, haven't tried the latest recruitment mission. Would have loved to finish SF's with my sith warrior and get my snowman, but I just can't be bothered with the monotony of that grind.

[ShadySands]

Finally got a chance to try the tournament thing and it was a cake walk for my 'Sin but my Sorc gets destroyed pretty badly. They are both in a mix of 216/220 gear but my Sorc has an influence level 50 Lana while my other guy is like 44. Maybe I just suck at Sorcing 

[kirottu]

Graphics performance comparison between ultra and low.

 

It boggles my mind that the warzone performance is still so bad after three expansions. Are they really never going to fix it?

 

[Humanoid]

Yeah, few months ago I played a bit on my laptop, with the mobile Haswell IGP. Not only did it experience FPS drops at minimum settings, it also had a tendency to crash to desktop in open areas (but not, for instance, at the fleet).

[213374U]

Graphics performance comparison between ultra and low.

 

It boggles my mind that the warzone performance is still so bad after three expansions. Are they really never going to fix it?

 

 

Huh, Snave's still playing. Gotta admire his dedication.

 

Meanwhile at Bioware Austin:

 

[Gorth]

Meanwhile at Bioware Austin:

Nice, a comprehensive guide to the expansion.

 

 

... ... ... ... ...

[Gorth]

...and yet another non-event for long time players, rehashing old content offering pets, cringe worthy titles and armor that long time players don't need. A shame about the chiss companion, but it's not an option. On the positive side, I got a bunch of EU IV dlc's on a sale on Steam.

[ShadySands]

The new "event" seems to be just create a new character and play the whole game again from scratch. That wouldn't be so bad if I didn't already do that with every class... twice

[kirottu]

I'm currently leveling up my inquisitor, last character before my main, and I hit 25 yesterday. Event prize was five loot crates and all the loot was "bind on pickup" and useless. Perhaps I was simply unlucky, but this whole event just feels kinda disappointing.

[Gorth]

To quote myself from the previous page, it's really a "non event" for old timers in the game. Odds are, you know the existing class missions inside out already and the loot is completely irrelevant. Of course, being a hypocrite, I still created two new alts (one imp, one pub) just to check out what the new companion is about. I justify it to myself with one of them replacing a level 15 healer commando that i was in the process of leveling up for operations anyway, so I deleted him and recreated him. At least I didn't have to wait 3 hours for Esseles to pop this time, got 2 pops with a max wait of 5 minutes each and everyone having done it before, the run took 25 minutes each time. At least that was a bit of silverlining on the dark skies of the end game content horizon.

 

 

Having a blast reading some of the butt hurt on the forums. It's hilarious how many people are whinging about heroics credits rewards being reduced to get closer to pre-4.0 levels. You would think people didn't have even the most basic grasp of economics. Credits flowing into the game in huge quantities from gold farmers and heroics. Guess which problem they fix first, the easy one to fix.

 

It's like the new players have absolutely no idea of how people made credits before 4.0 (hint: weeklies and dailies, which incidentally still exists, but no, too much work and doesn't give you a million credits a day for 45 minutes of effort). Giving ridiculous payout for heroics was probabluy the brainchild of the same brigt person who thought giving the best gear in the game from the easiest ops was a great idea, lets remove any motivation for doing something other than highlighted HM and FP ops

[213374U]

I'm currently leveling up my inquisitor, last character before my main, and I hit 25 yesterday. Event prize was five loot crates and all the loot was "bind on pickup" and useless. Perhaps I was simply unlucky, but this whole event just feels kinda disappointing.

 

From what I gather (I'm not subbed atm), the idea is that trash from the event packs unlocks in collections i.e. if you're lucky, you get an interesting piece with the 'event' character, and then you get to spend CC to unlock it for the rest.

 

Disappointing is... putting it mildly.

 

 

 

Having a blast reading some of the butt hurt on the forums. It's hilarious how many people are whinging about heroics credits rewards being reduced to get closer to pre-4.0 levels. You would think people didn't have even the most basic grasp of economics. Credits flowing into the game in huge quantities from gold farmers and heroics. Guess which problem they fix first, the easy one to fix.

 

I remember getting chewed out pretty bad for suggesting that Yavin slicing nodes dropping two blue lockboxes was going to hurt the game's economy in the long run, and the resulting rate of price increases observed across the board was unsustainable. This was back when Tulak's chest was 20M. People countered with such well-thought out and articulate arguments that getting 12-15k per node was simply "fun", and "supply and demand bro".

 

That and being accused of "attitude" and being "elitest" (sic) after offering to carry some crybaby through SM DF-DP so they could complete the Oricon arc, made me realize that it was in my best interest to blacklist the SWTOR forums.

 

So now I'm your problem.

Edited July 1, 2016 by 213374U

[ShadySands]

I've still never done an operation and I've been playing since beta

 

Queues never pop and the guilds I join either die or have schedules that aren't compatible with mine and then die

[Gromnir]

if you ain't in a raid guild, operations will serious test your faith in humanity.  the problem being that being in a raid guild will almost definite destroy your faith in humanity.

 

pug for ops?  HA!

 

 

chances are you spend hours on a pointless endeavor that ends up costing you ridiculous credits on repairs to your gear as you endure wipe after wipe after wipe afterwipeafterwipeafterwipe.

 

raid guilds would be ok if you didn't need have to interact with your fellow guild members.  the drama-free guilds peopled only by mature gamers may not be complete mythical, but they is having a life span measured in a handful o' months. 

 

kinda amusing , but we did mostest o' our ops stuff when we were still doing serious pvp.  many pvp folks were in raid guilds, and when they were short a few bodies, they would frequent ask Gromnir to fill in at heals or tank.  when we stopped doing pvp regular, we also stopped doing ops.

 

we don't miss doing ops.  miss the gearing opportunities a bit, but not enough to  do pug or join a guild.

 

actual, we haven't played swtor for months.  the game has more appeal for us if we take the frequent multi-month hiatus.  the dvl event looks idiotic, but we ain't too smart.  gonna take one empire and one republic character through eternal level to be acquiring the new companions.  got a guardian and marauder each to level 25, but is already becoming a slog. am kinda curious 'bout the new companions, so thanks to our ocd we will likely stick 'round 'til we get both new characters to 65.  

 

am assuming that the companions is actual  imp v. pub as 'posed to dark v. light, but we ain't bothered to check.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps  well that is mildly interesting... and dvl naming actual now makes sense to us.  seems companion choice is resulting from global dvl point totals at the end o' the event.  if more folks play ls, then we all get ls comp.  if folks 'cross all servers play more towards sinister, then the ds companion will be the choice. 

 

rif

Edited July 2, 2016 by Gromnir

[kirottu]

ps  well that is mildly interesting... and dvl naming actual now makes sense to us.  seems companion choice is resulting from global dvl point totals at the end o' the event.  if more folks play ls, then we all get ls comp.  if folks 'cross all servers play more towards sinister, then the ds companion will be the choice. 

 

rif

 

If go through all the trouble to get a new companion I definitely want the blue chick. How can you not go for blue chick in scifi? Always go for the blue chick in scifi. 

[Gorth]

If go through all the trouble to get a new companion I definitely want the blue chick. How can you not go for blue chick in scifi? Always go for the blue chick in scifi.

Haha, yeah. Blue chicks are cool indeed. I had a Chiss operative already, but since I needed to create an Imperial toon despite not needing anyone (other than for the event) I went with a blue madness sorceress. Aptly name 'Blue Madness' (goes to show how much effort I put into *that* character). It was a lot easier to chose a Republic toon, as I had a level 22 Commando healer I was in the progress of levelling up for endgame, so he got deleted and recreated as an exact copy, right down to the name (and is now about the level he used to be). Say hello to the future Major Kolto Pack (once 'Kolto Pack' gets his Major title).

 

 

The bugs in this game gets more and more bizarre. A smuggler who has completed chapter ix ran into a nake Aric Jorgan and another character inside my stronghold, both of them standing next to a doorway. That was creepy (none of them are smuggler companion or potential recruits at this point in the KoftE story)

 

 

Tried something new yesterday on my merc girl... getting oneshot while at full health by the first Rancor boss in HM KP. 79k hitpoints? Not a problem when the rancor hits you with a 153k swipe attack (his basic attack)

[kirottu]

I hit 50 today with my sith sorcerer and got like 8 or 10 of those light versus dark loot crates. Lots of random pieces of gear that are now bound to the character I'm likely never going to play again. 

[Gromnir]

yeah, the bound boxes is a bit o' a disappointment. bioware responded that they admit that bound is not ideal and they are considering solutions. on the other hand, the xp bonuses on the dvl armour set is actual rather impressive.  with the three pieces you now got, the armour provides +25% xp.  full armour set is gonna be +50%.  the armour is bound to legacy and usable at level 1. is nice armour for new characters you create in the future.  

 

HA! Good Fun!