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

[ShadySands]

Thought about playing again since a new story update is coming out but after patching the feeling had passed. I did check out the data mining to find out who the traitor was and I have no idea how that makes any sense. Oh well. Skipping this update too. Maybe I'll come back for 6.0 as all these 5.x updates are kinda disappointing.

[ShadySands]

My loving wife got us both 6 month game time cards so I ended up playing the new patch after all. The new flashpoint was decent but maybe a little long and definitely too railroaded. It's still very buggy and I had the first boss fight reset about 4 or 5 times on me. I think it may have had something to do with one of the boss knockback skills but I'm not 100% on that. It's also laggy which hurt my enjoyment a bit and I don't think it's me since I have been able to run the game on max flawlessly since 2 computer upgrades ago and I don't think it's my connection because it was solidly just under a gig for my whole having session, at least according to my ISP and their tools.

 

I guess we're supposed to grind this FP for the new currency until the next update but I've found my patience at grinding these things isn't what it used to be.

 

The story still makes no sense

[ShadySands]

I can't believe it myself but I'm actually enjoying this game again.Sure it's mostly due to a CXP "bug" that has given most of the dailies 15 times their intended gain but I actually feel like doing stuff is worth my time again.

 

I've started a new Sith Sorc because most of my old characters have some bug or another and while it's only companions that are missing and/or messed up I decided to roll a new character and have a fresh start. I'm already at command level 186 or so with my biggest limiting factor being that I some of the dailies have to be unlocked such as Yavin, Ziost, Iokath (which was already "fixed") and Oricon which I have unlocked last night.  Dunno about Rishi or GSI stuff.

[Hurlshort]

My son has been playing a bit. He was not happy with one of the helmet looks, so I went in to hide the helmet for him. Turns out you need to pay for such a luxury. Lame.

 

He did hit level 21, which is pretty neat for a 7 year old.

[Gromnir]

haven't played since late 2016.  the command xp complete killed the fun for us.  am likely to final kill our subscription, though maybe wait for the next big event and try to get back into the mix.

 

'course, we ain't been playing much o' anything these past few months.  played a bit o' battletech beta, but little else, so maybe is a Gromnir problem more than swtor.

 

but again, command xp grind has been our penultimate nail in the coffin for swtor.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited September 8, 2017 by Gromnir

[ShadySands]

CXP was the reason I finally unsubbed because I couldn't stand the grind for such pitiful gains but my wife got me a new sub and they've made a lot of improvements to that terrible system.

 

I'd recommend trying it out just to see if you enjoy it more now with increased CXP, especially from the dailies. It'll probably be going on for a few weeks more.

 

 

My son has been playing a bit. He was not happy with one of the helmet looks, so I went in to hide the helmet for him. Turns out you need to pay for such a luxury. Lame.

 

He did hit level 21, which is pretty neat for a 7 year old.

 

SWTOR has a pretty weak F2P system with almost every cool feature needing to be unlocked

[ShadySands]

Decided to play my Sin too since he has all the daily areas unlocked and he went from 19-21 (don't remember exactly where he was at) to 66 in about 90 minutes.

 

Also, was able to confirm that Yavin, Oricon, Ziost, CZ-198, Black Hole, and Section X dailies are the boosted ones and some of the bonus quests are boosted to so if anyone decides to give it a spin, there you go.

 

PS you can get a 2 hour 100% CXP boost on the fleet for 190 command tokens and some credits

[Gorth]

Words are insufficient to describe the damage Ben Irving (the old lead producer) did to this game.  Hats off to the new guy, who at least tries some damage control by adding new multiplayer content and reducing the cxp grind a bit. Still, the latter should just have been removed completely.

 

I quite enjoyed the new flashpoint, although I guess it's boring outside of "master mode". It really has some nice challenges in the various boss fights!

 

My friends and I almost beat Trial and Error in master mode too about a week ago, but damn, the last boss just knocked the stuffing out of us when we got there. Wasted soooo much time on the second boss(es, since they are a pair)

 

THe main activity is on the weekends though where our raid team regularly kills Tyth so we can progress on A&E. Getting the twins down to around 20% now, which is effectively the burn phase where you have to start pushing them into overdrive mode and get rid of the tank swap requirement. We still struggle to control the countermeasures in this phase, which is what wipes us (healers getting too many stacks, so less and less healing forthcoming). We'll get them too though. But... I &^%$$ hate Tyth by now. You can do everything perfectly and not stand a chance thanks to RNG when the adds spawn. We started swapping lockouts with some other guilds occasionally, cross faction too, so we don't have to kill him each and every Saturday.

 

I believe once the sisters are down, NiM Scum and Villainy is next on our schedule (keeping my old shadow tank busy!)

[majestic]

I believe once the sisters are down, NiM Scum and Villainy is next on our schedule (keeping my old shadow tank busy!)

 

Scum and Villainy used to be a very fun raid on nightmare. I don't know if the instance made it through all the upscaling and expansions intact though. It's been well over two years now that I last played SW:TOR.

[ShadySands]

I've still never done an operation

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I've still never done an operation

I did a few and found them very tedious and not worth the wait, especially if you don't have a group ready to go. My guild mates and some aussie **** talking a random dude was more fun than the fights.

[Gorth]

 

I believe once the sisters are down, NiM Scum and Villainy is next on our schedule (keeping my old shadow tank busy!)

 

Scum and Villainy used to be a very fun raid on nightmare. I don't know if the instance made it through all the upscaling and expansions intact though. It's been well over two years now that I last played SW:TOR.

 

 

With a bit of luck, I'll be able to tell you in a not so distant future. For now, we still got a pair of twin sisters to bring down.

[ShadySands]

Sort of did my first raid yesterday because the random guild I'm in needed DPS and I answered the call. I guess the goal was to beat the Twins or whatever they are called but we spent like an hour trying to get an 8th member for the raid so I had to bail shortly after beating Tyth because my wife came home. We ended up doing it with only 7 because that 8th member never materialized. I'm sure undermanning a veteran raid is no big accomplishment but I'm still proud of it.

[majestic]

Sort of did my first raid yesterday because the random guild I'm in needed DPS and I answered the call. I guess the goal was to beat the Twins or whatever they are called but we spent like an hour trying to get an 8th member for the raid so I had to bail shortly after beating Tyth because my wife came home. We ended up doing it with only 7 because that 8th member never materialized. I'm sure undermanning a veteran raid is no big accomplishment but I'm still proud of it.

 

It's more than most people in an MMO can boast of, so more power to you.

[ShadySands]

I give up trying to format it

 

Click here for roadmap 

Announcement blog

Edited October 2, 2017 by ShadySands

[213374U]

So the takeaway is... server merges incoming on November. Why not go all the way and make two megaservers?

 

And of course, thoroughly underwhelming news on the content front. Guess I won't be picking it up again anytime soon.

[ShadySands]

I thought it was decent

 

Next raid boss, new FP, new GSF map, new warzone

 

I would prefer more story, a lot more story, but it looks like it's just going to be flashpoints pushing the story until next year

[majestic]

So the takeaway is... server merges incoming on November. Why not go all the way and make two megaservers?

 

Well to be fair who wants the French on their servers but other French? My old World of Warcraft realm was in a realm group with French realms. Fun times during random BGs and dungeons. They were always the only ones not trying to communicate. Well them and the Russians, but eh, they have an excuse. Stupid Cyrillic character set. Srsly. /racist rant.

 

I could fake interest in the new GSF map but I've been away for so long that I probably won't be able to overcome the intertia to try. Also obviously would no longer have a group to play with and solo queueing GSF means waiting an hour or two even on a busy night thanks to the way the matchmaking works.

Edited October 3, 2017 by majestic

[213374U]

I thought it was decent

 

Next raid boss, new FP, new GSF map, new warzone

 

I would prefer more story, a lot more story, but it looks like it's just going to be flashpoints pushing the story until next year

 

Well, I guess it comes down to expectations. I keep expecting them to surprise me with a return to form. In that light, the kind of content releases that add a flashpoint, a WZ and one raid boss is always going to fall short. Nothing wrong with enjoying it for what it is of course, but to me it's just... meh. Then again I'm nowhere near as prolific a gamer as you so I always have a metric ****ton of stuff lined up.

 

@majestic: ah, yes. I forgot that after 1871, the French and Germans just can't be in the same server together.

 

Anyway, better queue times are a good thing, but pugging EC is always going to be a veritable nightmare no matter how good waiting times are. Incredible that after all this time they haven't been able to come up with a system to encourage vets to teach pugs the ropes -- and the "proving grounds" aspect of the Eternal Championship seems to have been abandoned.

[majestic]

Well, I guess it comes down to expectations. I keep expecting them to surprise me with a return to form. In that light, the kind of content releases that add a flashpoint, a WZ and one raid boss is always going to fall short. Nothing wrong with enjoying it for what it is of course, but to me it's just... meh. Then again I'm nowhere near as prolific a gamer as you so I always have a metric ****ton of stuff lined up.

 

I think that was the last stretch of content the original team planned for. Way back in early 2012 there was a planned content leak close to the release of patch 1.2 - just right before the first batch of long subscriptions ran out and EA realized that their precious WoW killer wouldn't exactly... kill WoW. Anyway the leak for the 1.2 update was spot on, suggesting that the leak wasn't faked.

 

The original posts are all gone by now sadly but I found a small summary (the links are all dead, obviously):

• Patch 1.2 - Prepare to return to Corellia to battle each other for control over the Black Hole, scout the Lost Island, and head to the planet of Denova to battle it out against both the Republic and Empire.
• Patch 1.3 - Discover the Legacy of the HK series of Assassin Droids, discover the horrors hiding deep within Belsavis, obtain Czerka Technology and aid Gree Droids as the mighty black bisector.
• Patch 1.4 - Battle with the Hutts on their homeworld of Varl and take the fight directly to them.
• Patch 1.5 - Trek to the ancient secret capital of Rakata Prime, do battle with a rogue Imperial Warlord and face off against The Dread Masters.

So Asation or a variation thereof was supposed to be patch 1.3 (that patch ended up being a massive nerf-bat for all content combined with the legacy system the game was supposed to launch with), not 1.4, HK-51 becamse its own content patch and Varl was supposed to host Scum and Villainy.

 

1.5 eventually was stretched out to the end of Rise of the Hutt Cartel.

[ShadySands]

I would have loved to see a year or two of what they originally had planned. 

[ShadySands]

With super daily CXP over so is my latest fling with SWTOR. I'll check back next month just to get Darth Hexid then I'll probably take another several months long break.

[kirottu]

Shadow of Revan expansion for free! Sweet.

[kirottu]

Guys, is the grey path still doable? I've been reading this and it would seem to me like trying to uphold grey alignment at max level would be just too much of an hassle. Am I right? 

 

Previously of all the possible characters light side sith sorcerer and grey jedi sage felt the best for me, with sage being the slightly better one, but now I'm not so sure anymore. 

[ShadySands]

It's just a little toggle at the bottom right of the screen and it also asks again for groupfinder stuff. It'd be tedious to keep switching back and forth but totally doable.