Hardcore vs. Casual

Sep27

More often than not, I have been described as being at Point A and Point B at the same time. You could say I like to multitask so much, I may just have too many feelings.

I have been referred to both of the above and if you have been reading this (and why are, you guys confuse me, god :P), you may have seen aspects of both yourself.

In general, I am a determined person. I also hate starting things without finishing them. Part of why I hate when new content comes out when I haven’t finished something is that it makes my list even longer, stresses me out more, and then I feel even more behind. I still have 6 million I need to somehow earn not counting added things for alts, the increased prices for speeders since 1.2, and other issues. It sucks, honestly.

But because of that determination, if I start something–whether it be an operation or flashpoint, I would be with the worst group possible and I wouldn’t give up. I would do it all day, I’d stay up all night, and I’d keep doing it until it was done. I don’t like leaving things unfinished. Ever.

Despite that, I think repeating things over and over is stupid. I don’t understand how someone could do dailies more than once. The credits just isn’t worth it enough for me, as much as I need them.

In general, when it comes down to my priorities, Gear and Credits/Commendations are at the bottom of it. Unfortunately, those are the same things needed to actually get my goals. It’s a horrible Catch-22 and while I do work hard on my gear, I really can’t do much with dailies as then I just…don’t want to play. Even if I get like 1 million in just a few days, I would essentially not be playing for about a week because it ruins the game for me. Like, I can’t stress that enough. It just completely kills it for me and I can’t deal with it.

I can somewhat deal with flashpoints and operations (unless it’s EV), but even then it’s still somewhat iffy. It’s for that reason I’m a pretty “all or nothing” person in the fact that I don’t want to keep repeating the same things over and over to just get to where we ended up being stuck before. I just want to keep going and going until we have where we’re stuck down, finish it now, then try and get what we need so we never have to see it again.

I do like to help people though and more often than not, I won’t have an issue helping someone out. Even if I have everything I need~ However, I do not like being used and there are times I may want to do something for myself and I do not like or appreciate being guilt-tripped to go and do someone a favor (and then hear them criticize me).

And as most people know, I do a lot of these things to collect. Knowing there is a possible and actually confirmed pet at the end of TfB waiting for me to repeatedly kill that guy to get it and the cave mystery is driving me crazy that I just can’t experiment with it more is essentially making me nuts. The Orochick upsets me in the fact that it has been CONFIRMED to be ingame and the whole thing is just a mess and I would really appreciate if they could just give me a straight answer on the Orochick being bugged or not.

But regardless, I suppose my go go go go go go until it’s dead and crazy collectiony policy clashes a lot with my repetition sucks, gear is silly and shouldn’t be so important, DAILIES ARE THE DEVIL policy. It also confuses people how much I hate PVP but keep doing it due to Ranked-speederness and the fact that I need 100 Valor for codexes. And it makes me sad when everyone wants to stop 🙁 (which is usually everyone but me but still).

Or even all the speeders when I think some of the colors are super ugly. I mean, I’m not like this in all games (and my boyfriend has pointed out that a “casual” collector would just be happy of a color of each and not care about getting every single one in every single color)–for example, in racing games with garages, I will usually just get one color per car unless there’s another color I REALLY like or something. But this game doesn’t have a crazy crowded garage–it just has an inventory thingy (though, wouldn’t it be cool if you had like…a speeder garage on your ship?).

In general, I’m just… a bit different I suppose. But I guess that just makes me… me.

Server Firsts and 1.4

Sep26

So, if you haven’t noticed, 1.4 is up 😛 While they had one delay, it seemed this went well overall… well, besides the GTN being down and no ETA on when it will be back.

I already changed my offhand and got my new healing skill. Much excitement. Hoping Mr. Robot will have the 1.4 stuff up as I want to update so badly and figure out what I need to aim for 🙁

Unfortunately, the Hazmat Implants are still 350. So much for them being a mistake. That is ridiculous. Seriously. Especially with the changes to BH Commendations. :/ I need 2 of the Hazmat Force-Healer’s MK-4 system so if you are a Biochem and learn those and feel like helping me out, let me know? 😀 Since I don’t think I’ll have even 350–let alone 700 anytime soon.

Anyway, while I try to ignore my obvious frustration, I will probably need level 27 stuff (that is 63 right?) so I should try and figure that out. Not to mention due to the whole set bonus by armoring, I will need at least one Advanced Resolve Armoring 27 through the random Hazmat gear off the first boss in HM. That will probably be the main focus, although, getting any of the armorings would be helpful.

In the end, I would at least need 2 made–for my belt and bracers, so I need to hold out for that 🙁 Then worry about getting one for my Top and Hat and Offhand x__x

…OR NOT. THEY DID IT. THEY USED THE CORRECT ARMORINGS. OMG. EEEEEEEEEEEEE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!? NO MORE UGLY CLOTHES.

*INSERTNOMOREUGLYCLOTHESDANCEHEREWITHAPPROPRIATEGIFSPLEASEUSEYOURIMAGINATION*

Regardless, I won’t switch my hat until I do get it as people still keep making such a big deal over this 4-set piece bonus. Oh well, it’s not an issue now. No declines, so may as well just deal with it as with no worry, it’d be silly not to take the bonus (even if I know how to heal without it). While Mr. Robot hasn’t completed updated the Denova Gear (equal to the Dread Guard Gear stat-wise) to reflect the hat and boots armorings correctly, it still has 3/5 right so. And yes, I am using it even if they haven’t properly updated. This blog wouldn’t be around if it wasn’t for my OCPD 😛

Unfortunately, I don’t know how long I can just keep holding on to the Rakata Ear Piece. It’s getting behind and Crit + Alacrity isn’t popping up. What I may have to do is switch to a Hazmat Force-Healer’s MK-3 Relay (of course, I’ll need to find someone who can make it or get it as a random drop) and then switch out an Aptitude Mod for a Crit mod to get my Crit back. I will need another Augment Kit then, but at least I do have an extra Resolve Augment on me (Actually, I’ll need 3 Augment Kits since I’ll need 2 for the Implants as well…thank god I have enough actual augments) Will be playing around with my stats to see if that will work, anyway. A Mettle Mod 27 actually gives me back the exact crit lost for switching the ear-piece so definitely good. …I suppose maybe I should go and switch the mod already though then and just find a Black Hole Force-lord’s MK-2 Relay in the meantime. …Does anyone have a Black Hole Force-lord’s MK-2 Relay they may be selling or they could make?

So, in general, what I need:
–Advanced Resolve Armoring 27 x3 (Dread Gear Offhand actually has a 61 armoring) It seems to be roughly the same cost as a 26 armoring (of course, this could be wrong), but at the moment, that means I’ll need (for a total of 3): 30 Durasteel, 18 Mandalorian Iron, 12 Molecular Stabilizer, 6 Synthetic Energy Matrix, and 30 Zal Alloy. EDIT: May just need 1! (10, 6, 4, 2, and 10) Apparently Belt and Bracers can be modifiable.
———-And for my records, specific Advanced Resolve Armoring 27: Head, Chest, Gloves, ~~Boots~~, Bottoms
–Advanced Mettle Mod 27 x5 x4 ~~(-1 if either ear piece mentioned hasn’t been gotten yet)~~
–Advanced Aptitude Mod 27 x3 ~~(+1 if either ear piece mentioned hasn’t been gotten yet)~~
~~–Advanced Adept Enhancement 27 x4~~
–Advanced Quick Savant Enhancement 27 x2
–Advanced Battle Enhancement 27 x1
–Advanced Resolve Hilt 27 x1
–Hazmat Force-Healer’s MK-3 Relay
–Hazmat Force-healer’s MK-4 System x2 (350 Black Hole Commendations each 🙁 )

What I can use ASAP:
Black Hole Force-lord’s MK-2 Relay
I already have a Advanced Mettle Mod 26 ready to go so.

~~…that will add another Augment Kit I need however 🙁~~ THANK YOU PRONGS FOR THE AUGMENT KITS. <3 DEPENDING ON HOW THE OFFHAND IS (As Mr. Robot doesn’t have that modified yet but you can see my new updated wishlist to get an idea!), may try switching 1 Advanced Adept Enhancement 27 to an Advanced Quick Savant Enhancement 27–if it’s still 75% surge, keep the switch…if it’s not, keep the slighter higher surge with the Adept)

moving on, I really wish I could HM TfB. I want that pet so badly. 🙁 But it most likely won’t happen as things never drop from me and when they do, the chance of me losing is pretty high. Only time I won on my first try was the M0-GUL Thrall Droid (and that took forever to drop…and I’ve seen it 3 times since now -_-). Also want to do 16-man HM so I can help with the caveness.

So, now to the first part of my subject: I’ve stressed myself out so much, this is going to be short and sweet: I think Server firsts are silly and people should just work together.

If I wanted a server first for ANYTHING, it’d probably be a certain pet…but it’s not a necessity…and I don’t think I’d care anyway (I’d be too happy just having the pet to care if I was first or not).

Flagging

Sep26

Sometimes, I wish there was a better handle on flagging. In general, I am a pretty helpful person. I like healing people when their health is down (even NPCs!) and buffing if I’m buffed and just helping people out.

This also tends to mean I accidentally get flagged a lot. In fact, I remember early on, my boyfriend and I were on Tatooine and suddenly I was buffed by someone! They had a green name and I actually thought they were an NPC. I was all “OMG an NPC buffed me! I didn’t know they could do that!” and without a second thought, buffed them and gave them a bubble. Imagine my surprise (and paranoia) when I suddenly heard a sound and learned I flagged myself for PVP.

Unfortunately, more often than not, I still respond mostly on reflex and thus, do not always notice (I also don’t always have nametags on so). What really upsets me, however, is how many times I’ve been killed on sight for being flagged.

I do not attempt to hurt these people. I do not try and attack them. In fact, there have been times where I just tried to have a nice conversation, somehow manage to accidentally get flagged, and am immediately killed. That sucks. I was trying to be nice and when I don’t even try to do anything and to just get attacked because somehow, my name became green. Or maybe a friend (I have so many friends who keep themselves flagged through Warzones or were on Ilum and then drag me along) was doing something with me or needed help with a quest and I get flagged and it is just miserable.

And what’s worse? When you tell them to leave you alone, you’re laughed at, insulted, ridiculed as they kill you or continue to try to… And honestly? When you do that, you just look like a complete and total butthead.

So, before you go and jump someone just because they’re flagged (obviously, PVP servers are different stories but…), maybe try seeing if they attack you first before making yourself look like a complete and total butt.

Well, that’s one way to kill someone’s mood.

Sep22

Someone is accusing me of cheating in PVP. That’s…really rude and obnoxious.

I have never cheated before or anything. I have always played honestly 🙁 So this was really frustrating and the person thinks I’m lying.

This sucks. v-v Just because I know how to get over to a thingy fast or neat ways to sneak a cap doesn’t mean I cheat 🙁 It just means I can be a Princess-healing-Ninja.

Edit: or being accidentally flagged and killed by a bunch of Imperials

Q&A-ness

Sep21

So, I am home and now reading over the Q&A (Yay for transcripts. I shall definitely watch after). To be honest, I’m super sad that I didn’t get to watch live 🙁 Regardless, yay for new information! If only it was longer.

BUT YES, ONTO THOUGHTS. I won’t comment on everything and mostly just highlight what I am excited about…but yeah XD

-Confirmed that Free to Play is coming in November.
-Some early gear sets. Also some experience boosts separate from legacy.
-New daily questing area coming soon~ (And we already knew about the Hypergates and stuff)
-Paid transfers are coming.
-” In a future update when we release Mekab there will be continuation of where the story left off.” yeeeeeeeeees.
-“you will see that a couple weeks before we launch the FTP option players can go into the PTS and our intent is for anybody that logs into PTS to get some Cartel Coins that they can play with only on PTS – those don’t xfer to the live game! We will have items for sale on PTS that people can go in, make purchase and give us feedback.” more yeeeeeeees. As for why this would excite me, it’d be nice to see stuff I’m going to want in the main game along with learning prices of things like…oh…I don’t know… PETS.
-Looks like the 350 BH Commendation Implants may be a mistake and not actually coming out immediately: “The side effect of PTS is that occasionally items that are not intended for live made it up there and unfortunately that specific item was the case of that. So that item in particular is going to be removed, reviewed, and hopefully a better version will come out in a future update.”
-While HK-51 will be out by the end of the year, Cathar may take somewhat longer: “Cathar and HK-51 are both in the works. HK-51 I am confident that you will see before the end of the year. Cathar have no definite timeframe at this point but we intend to introduce them as the first species in SWTOR.”
-Mounts and Pets for the Cartel Shop! Also some gear sets, but will have no impact on endgame. Sounds interesting: “The gear you will find will be interesting to everyone because it is not going to be restricted by class or by faction and all moddable”
-“We also have a really cool thing called Cartel packs. Cartel packs you buy give you a random assortment of really cool items and a chance to get some of the cooler items that maybe in the game (not powerful, but very cool – they going to make you look AMAZING!)” I just hope it’s just a pack of various items over some kind of random item box.
-Nightmare EC and Nightmare TfB will have various differences besides just being harder.
-Whether the XP Boosts and Rocket Boots will be overlaps of the legacy system or just alternate ways to purchase currently unknown as they couldn’t say.
-Cathar can be purchased with Cartel Coins (as well as credits I think? Wording is kind of odd). More may be available to as well over using credits.
-Hood toggle option still coming.
-More content for smaller groups of players coming.

There wasn’t really anything else in particular. Wish they answered some of the stuff I was really wondering about 🙁

HM EC Progress and Bunnies

Sep20

So, the HM EC run tonight went well 🙂 We got to the tanks and got them to 52% and 59% on our second go, but then one person had to head to bed so we stopped there. Hoping to try again this weekend. I’m happy it went well–they were all so excited. And considering our tank was a random pick-up person with no experience… :3 He was really good.

Besides that, a friend has essentially noted me as Bunnies due to an answer he gave about their healer tonight. 😛

Also still watching some streams for more ideas on the Cave Mystery, but nothing yet 🙁

As for the Orochick Mystery, the bug report ticket was sent to developers/wherever bugs go, but whether it really is a bug and/or is being worked on is yet to be known and I’m hoping I’ll get an answer back on that soon.

…

Sep17

Even if I may have improved from those stupid nerfs for sages/sorcerers during 1.2 and even if one is kind of less horrible with the upcoming new heal for sages (sadly, the nerf to Deliverance still exists giving the “main” healing class the slowest big heal), everytime I hear how much sages suck compared to another healing class and/or how much better healing scoundrels/commandos are, a little bit of my heart breaks.

It just kind of sucks. I feel really bad for anyone who can’t play how they like. My thirst for discovery continues, but I can’t help and feel a little demotivated every time I hear things like that.

Story vs. Hard/Nightmare

Sep14

If there is one thing that has come up a lot, it is people skipping story mode to go right into HM or Nightmare (or even a whole new tier) to get geared. I just…hate when people do that. I also dislike when I am personally dragged into a harder difficulty if I have not finished a lower difficulty of something. Getting dragged into HM False Emperor before I finished normal FE and Battle of Ilum was frustrating and it took us hours to find people to do the normal versions with us (in the end, we actually did most of Battle of Ilum with a companion before another friend got on and helped us out).

I don’t understand why people skip around. Sure, it may not be any of my business, but it is annoying. I don’t care if you can be carried through a harder difficulty and get geared faster. What about the differences? The chances? Do you not want to experience it?

I’ve already mentioned how I wouldn’t even do HM or NM if it wasn’t for codexes or some vanity stuff. However, some completely new experiences would make me curious–the main difference is I wouldn’t feel like I HAVE to do it or like I’m being forced to.

And honestly, I feel it is better to learn the original fights and then adjust to new mechanics rather than going in and killing yourself trying to learn the fight with a bit more difficulty added to it. There’s a reason most people start learning to ride a bike with training wheels. It doesn’t help that most people aren’t even running in because they need to hurry and gear for some reason. It is because they feel they’re too good for story mode and that makes me sad. And feel very bad for story mode. 🙁

(and really, the fact that I prefer to go in order should surprise nobody if you look at how many lists and things I make. Planet order, quest order, etc. Having to backtrack annoys me quite a bit and I’d rather pause and wait and get something done in the order it should be than skip ahead unless I’ve done it before.)

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.

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.

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