Archive | September 2012

The Endgame Problem

Sep12

Due to lots of discussion with my boyfriend about various things today–the issue came up with how the endgame system essentially copied WoW and has the whole “YOU NEED TO DO ALL THIS TO GET THIS GEAR TO MAKE IT SO YOU ARE ABLE TO DO THE FIRST PART OF THIS STUFF” when it is all level 50 content.

It is level 50 content.

And you need to go over the river, through the woods, and down a mountain to even hit the first part of it. And honestly? He’s right–that’s stupid. We hit level 50, why do we have to do all this repetitive stupidity to actually be able to do the content we should be “looking forward” to?

While I’m actually more or less completely geared out until 1.4 officially hits, I will say it is kind of annoying. I wasn’t able to play WoW long (it got boring for me fast) so I can’t comment on their End-game personally, but it seems silly that after you hit level 50, you have to go on some long silly journey to actually do something new at level 50.

HM Flashpoints are barely any different. I would say the biggest change between normal and hard (and this is probably why it has its own tier in Group Finder) is in Lost Island where many mechanics are excluded completely (Droid has no fire come up from the floor, Dr. Lorick’s second phase doesn’t even exist, etc.). HM and NM Operations do have some mechanic differences (though, some you can more or less skip—like Fabricator’s), but I think other than EC, none are really too big of a deal (unless you didn’t blow up the Lightning balls in SM Soa).

I don’t understand why end-game content can’t be special full group things without it being “YOU NEED ALL THIS GEAR OMG.”

It wouldn’t even be such a big deal if only HM and NM did that and those were solely just for a challenge. Kind of like how Ranked was supposed to be. Just a challenge for those who wanted it but they had to go and make all this special ranked requirement gear which really ruins it for me (I’m not good enough for Ranked. Nobody wants me unless they are desperate and I’m not skilled enough to ever get a 2200 rating for that speeder).

I could care less about the harder difficulties in anything. Not because I’m lazy or am looking for something easy, but because I hate repetition. If it wasn’t for the codexes and certain speeders and pets, I wouldn’t bother with different difficulties because gear isn’t my priority. I already have the outfit I plan to wear forever. But yet, I have to bother with gear because I have to. Because I’d be unable to do the content otherwise—not because it is an upgrade and would just help me kill things faster.

It’s level 50 content FOR level 50’s, yes? And yet, there’s so much farming and annoyances we have to do. And before people are all “but then we’d run out of content too fast!!!” I’m sure if they weren’t busy making different difficulties of the same stupid content and just made level 50 content without all the “gearing up” and mountains you need to climb to do so, we could get plenty of normal, story-driven, level 50 content and maybe there’d be stuff like Heroic 8’s which would be all raid-y and operationish. And then that gap wouldn’t be there in the first place. Not to mention then there wouldn’t even need to be different gear for PVP either and expertise could be kicked to the curb already.

High Population Server Test?

Sep12

So, I received this e-mail recently:

Higher Population Server Tech Coming Soon!
Greetings :

We wanted to let you know that we’re getting ready to introduce new high population server tech that will allow us to increase current server populations. Any characters remaining on an origin server will be moved to a high population destination server in order to provide a better overall gameplay experience. Please help us test this by posting on our Public Test Server forum and reporting any bugs or strange issues that you may experience.

All players will need to follow the instructions below in order to test the high population server tech.

Log in to the Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ launcher using your username and password.
Click “Play” to launch the game.
Click the Server Selection button in the bottom left corner of the character creation screen.
Select the following server: “High Population Server Test”
Click “Select”.
Review your characters for any issues and click “Play”.

If you have previously created a character on the Public Test Server, please do not worry: your characters have not been touched or deleted. This is a special Public Test Server and your previously created characters will still be available on the regular Public Test Server when it returns.

Get Started

Your feedback and participation are truly appreciated.

Thanks,
The Star Wars™: The Old Republic Community Team

However, I’m guessing this isn’t up yet as I do not see the server anywhere. I wonder if it was sent out by mistake or something? Hmm… Regardless, it sounds fun. Hopefully there will be more information soon.

The Black Hole Issue

Sep11

So, apparently the Black Hole Weekly is gone on the test server. Let’s hope this is a glitch because I do not know why it is still called Black Hole then (yes, I know there is a whole crater and junk but part of it was because you could get the commendations from it).

I’m not sure if Rakghoul Conflicts is still around, but it seems more or less, with the exception of the Group Finder Dailies, they really want to make BH Commendations kind of operation-only. I kind of can guess why…but it just really sucks–especially with the prices of those stupid implants. ._.

The Transfer Dilemma + PVE/PVP

Sep11

If you’ve been browsing the PTS forum and paying attention to a few of the news threads (or even noticed my slight mention here), you will know that a lot of people are incredibly upset that transfers weren’t done. And on top of that, this makes more people upset there isn’t some system that lets you instantly level to 50 or get some instant high tier gear to try things out.

And to be honest? I do have to agree a bit, although, I see both sides to it. I’ll go over reasons why they probably didn’t transfer everyone as it should be shorter:
1. Chances are, this patch will be out incredibly soon regardless. Supposedly it will be out sometime around the 25th (most likely before) which means it won’t be on the Test Server for long.

2. This means the chance of someone clearing it on the Test Server and thus, being able to take it out immediately on the live game are lessened substantially.

3. This guarantees them to only have people they know will help test. I will admit I wasn’t able to test a lot of their focus content which is partially because:
1. My guild could care less
2. My boyfriend couldn’t get the Test Server at the time
3. I didn’t know anyone.

My gear wasn’t fantastic so I really could just test some of the smaller things. Regardless, I sent several bug reports on Group Finder even if I couldn’t be more help for 1.2 (I spent most of my time Pet Researching though…).

However, this leads up to favoritism. There are many guilds who helped test previous content and were not transferred. And the debate over “What makes their $15 worth more than mine?” appears quite a bit. And I can’t say I completely blame anyone for it. On the otherhand, BioWare can only know so many that did help test and maybe they weren’t able to bring them over, but they still could’ve done something.

They could’ve possibly transferred any characters that completed HM EC and have logged in within the last 1-2 week(s). Those users would be in a position to help test (as they’d have the proper gear. For reference, my gear was before I fixed all my mods so it’s a mess) and to be honest? So many people wanted to. I had friends getting ready to do 16-man, my boyfriend was finally going to be able to try the test server out… and I was going to help. I was going to be useful and be able to do something. And that ended up being completely blown to pieces. (for those wondering, the time helps make sure the person is still playing and is still subscribed)

Even limited transfers would have been great. Or just a chance for people to try and ask to be transferred rather than just being blown off. I knew SO MANY PEOPLE who were so excited to try and give feedback and I was even going to get a chance myself and now? I’ll be lucky if I get to do a story mode run.

The thing is…this has been promoted for ages. People were dying for this. So excited for it. And this was kind of a slap in the face to all those people. Maybe it would’ve taken a bit, but would it really have been that impossible?

Anyway, going onto the PVE/PVP thing…this can be summed up very easily: If you make different gear for PVE and PVP…separate the nerfs too. I have yet to see any real nerfs that are done because of PVE–just PVP…and that isn’t fair. I joined a PVE server for a reason :/ There’s no reason there can’t be some debuff that causes these changes when you are flagged and/or in a Warzone.

Terror from Beyond

Sep11

Been watching some videos. It does look really interesting. Have seen up to Kephess in SM and just the first boss in HM. Kephess is SUPER creepy. X___x Looking forward to seeing someone get the final boss down.

Also, Puzzle Boss = amazing.

There is at least one lore object in there so yay for new codexes. Will have to update my list–but need to get names of all the codexes first.

(Also, a new codex about Resolve was adding too in Game Rules…shall have to see how t get that one)

Now that Mr. Robot is back up…

Sep10

So, looking through Gear Changes..

Offhand stats of mine are Power and Surge. Dread ones are Power + Alacrity OR Crit and Surge.

I’m…going to have to do a lot of messing around with Mods again depending on how this goes which I won’t look forward to. :/

Both of my Implants are Power + Alacrity. Hazmat Forcehealer’s MK-4 System are as well:
-93 Endurance
-108 Willpower
-76 Power
-60 Alacrity

Stats on what I currently have:
+87 Endurance
+102 Willpower
+71 Power
+56 Alacrity

So, that is definitely an improvement which means I need 2 Hazmat Forcehealer’s MK-4 Systems which are 350 Black Hole Commendations each. Fun. >_>

Going back to the offhand, I could possibly switch to Crit & Surge and then switch a Crit Mod to Power if that matches up?

On the otherhand, since you can modify them now, I can probably just switch stuff around to begin with. Will probably need an Aptitude Mod and Adept Enhancement for it. So, I just want to get 27’s of everything and switch a few things in the Off-hand to make it the same stats as mine, but better. …So, I mostly just need to (besides save up for those armorings/mods/enhancements and/or do a lot of Campaign) worry about saving up Black Hole Commendations for the implants… or hope someone who has like a bazillion BH Commendations gets lucky and can make them.

There is nothing worse…

Sep10

…then looking forward to something, trying to make yourself better for it, then missing out because something completely screws it over.

I’ve had this happen one time before. Only this is so much worse because I feel like an idiot for even doing such a thing and I have nobody to blame by myself for being so stupid.

Test Server notes!

Sep10

Just random stuff as I explore… Shall continue to update.

-New quest (most likely what starts Terror from Beyond) from Minister Sosa who is in the Supplies area. She gives a quest called Ancient Allies. As expected, the Gree are involved.

-New gear–Hazmat and Dread Guard. Dread Guard is from HM Terror from Beyond. Only Hazmat stuff listed are some implants. Dread Guard seems to have rating 63 modifications.

-Sage offhand IS officially now modifiable. Shall have to take a look at mine when I get a chance… Will possibly need to buy a mod, enhancement, and armoring for it depending on what it has. It should have a +41 crystal regardless…but I want a magenta one 😐 May just buy off the market (let’s pretend I have credits for a moment). I’d do some comparisons on my gear and the new stuff…but Mr. Robot seems to be down for me. Wish I could do actual comparisons, but well:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to offer the ability to copy characters for this test nor will there be any rewards offered for testing. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

So depressing T__T I really wanted to try Terror from Beyond…

Edit 2: THE NEW HEAL. I can’t really get a perfect idea on how good it is with my armor on the test server… but hopefully it’s better than what I am doing. It seemed to do about 3.5K (with a few smaller heals of about 100 or so). Crit for about 6K. So it seems to be on par with Deliverance which is pretty awesome.

Edit 3: The next part of the first quest is in the North East Corner (next Doorway after EC). The Gree kind of scare me. Kephess is confirmed to be back even further. Definitely going to be the familiar face.

Edit 4: Instance for the quest is also in this same area…you just take a left turn instead of going straight.

Edit 5: Asation~ Very pretty loading splash screen. Going to check out the cutscene to head down to the operation itself.

Edit 6: Leads you right into a cutscene. Very pretty sky. There is a Speeder Bike right at the beginning. Says it’s not functioning right now. Land is pretty swampy–can’t explore much without hitting an exhaustion zone.

Edit 7: 3 Maps. The first map…you go in then back out and then in again and then outside… Looks interesting.

Edit 8: Lots of robots. …couldn’t get much further sadly 😛

Edit 9: It seems we may actually go through the hypergate. Interesting.

Edit 10: The Mood section is under “Action”. There is Neutral, Alarmed, Annoyed, Astounded, Awed, Cheery, Dejected, Depressed, Discomforted, Eager, Flattered, Frustrated, Hurt, Joyful, Meditate, Mournful, Saddened, Scowling, and Stunned. Some look a bit silly, but they are still a nice feature.

Edit 11: Heading back to gear, supposedly the Belt and Bracers are modable! Yay! That would mean I could get them from the gear instead of waiting for someone to make them. Really need to work on what I have to aim for next…

Test server + 1.4 Patch Notes are up!

Sep10

For the patch notes 🙂 Currently patching on my computer and downloading on my laptop as we speak. Only disappointment is it looks like no character transfers…which is really depressing T__T (Also, looks like no new pets officially mentioned…however, that doesn’t mean much. I kind of hope not though as we have enough mysteries on our hands with the Wonderous/Wondrous Egg/Orochick and who knows what with the Lobelode)

Regardless, some highlights and things I found interesting from the patch notes:
-Obviously Terror from Beyond is out. The new gear is “Dread Guard” (it sounds silly)

-The ground targeting reticule is no longer cleared when a channeled ability completes channeling. (Very nice. This was always a bit frustrating/confusing in PVP)

-Players no longer receive the error message “You cannot cast while moving” when moving, stopping, and then immediately using a ground-targeted ability. (Yay!)

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