Star Wars: The Old Republic

[Shrinweck]

Never been that into PvP in MMORPGs. The modes sound intriguing but past griefing has basically ruined me on doing more than dabbling on PvP servers. PvP minigames aren't really for me either.

I'm guessing no one finds it appalling that I'm probably rolling my Republic character on a PvE server? In a game where camping quest objectives is as easy as SW:TOR I just don't have any interest in getting perma-griefed to the point where I have to abandon a character for another one for any period of time.

[Don]

Since all your story stuff takes place in instances it's probably not as bad as other games. You can also just do the start of most instances and reset them for leveling. Of course if you have to do that to avoid PvP then why even roll on a PvP server to begin with?

[Shrinweck]

Leveling would take forever and a day compared to questing with that method

Edit: It looks like they announced that you can just patch up the beta from last week (not the previous beta builds) to the final launch version. The bug I got that made my shadow completely unplayable makes me too nervous to keep the data without a validation utility, so I'm biting the bullet and downloading the whole thing again. So far so good - didn't even get the launcher update bug that made SW:TOR install into the launcher update directory.

[kali o.]

If you aren't rolling on a pvp server, we won't be on the same server. If I am not raging kids out, I'm not getting what I paid for

If it makes you feel better, don't forget you need to toggle the PVP flag, so it's not like it isn't consensual.

[Shrinweck]

Huh? I though the entire point of a PvP server was that your flag was constantly toggled outside of the first two planets? It's PvE where you toggle. I love how in the description of PvP servers, they have a disclaimer where any player-based griefing that doesn't involve exploits is perfectly legal. Doesn't bode well.

[Eric]

Well they're obviously trying to sell you on the lore, as opposed to any in game advantages, and there's no way the Trooper comes close to Sith anything there.

[Shrinweck]

They're kind of careful with the non-force user versus a force user in the beginning. You're likely to be ~16 as, say, a smuggler or a trooper before you even see a mob with a lightsaber that you can kill and you have to go slightly out of your way to do that. I'm not even completely sure you can get into that area since none of the smuggler quests sent me there and you have to go through an elevator to get to the dreaded Sith... Apprentice.

[Don]

On the Empire side you don't run into anyone with lightsabers until the Dark Temple I think if you're not a force using class. Guys before just have 'training sabers'.

[Don]

I just found out Discharge doesn't cancel the buff of a CHARGED lightsaber. So I was not using my most damaging attack the whole time because I thought it's like a last-ditch move (takes 50 Force to charge your lightsaber, and losing Dark Charge can pretty much mess you up badly while tanking) as opposed to something you use on every CD.

[Shrinweck]

If you aren't rolling on a pvp server, we won't be on the same server. If I am not raging kids out, I'm not getting what I paid for :)

If it makes you feel better, don't forget you need to toggle the PVP flag, so it's not like it isn't consensual.

Were you going to play a Sith? I may be up for making my Assassin on a PvP server, but I probably won't be playing a Sith alt at all until I've unlocked the Legacy system.

[kali o.]

Were you going to play a Sith? I may be up for making my Assassin on a PvP server, but I probably won't be playing a Sith alt at all until I've unlocked the Legacy system.

First toon without a doubt will be a trooper. Maybe after that, or possibly at the same time, I can roll something on the Empire side.

[Shrinweck]

Early access apparently begins on the 13th now. Wow. A Tuesday release is much more traditional, too. Interesting last minute move. I thought them starting Early Access on the 13th was just a wording mistake, but on their latest bit of news there is the line "Early Game Access may be up to 7 days"

Very excited about having to wait two less days heh

[Don]

They probably decided it'd be pretty stupid to give people one day of early access because all that'll happen is people will post angry stuff on board so they extend it to be longer so eveyrone will at least get the weekend.

[Shrinweck]

What they probably realized in the stress test was that it was feasible for them to put everyone into the game in three days rather than five. This could have been the plan for a long time but they were being conservative in their predictions. I kind of like that they do things like this. It's definitely better to be pleasantly surprised than bitterly disappointed.

[Don]

I'm not really surprised because if even a significant portion of pre order guys get a '1 day early access' you're going to have a firestorm of negative press. Having a 1 day early access would be like getting a bonus of $10. Most people would find it insulting even if you tell them 'but it's better than nothing'. Sure it's still likely just whine but it just wouldn't do anything good for the game. Again, handling a very large number of people is really no big deal. The Thanksgiving weekend had 750K unique users and it's relatively smooth. Sure sometimes your server lags for no reason but that happens on even perfectly mature games with almost nobody playing. It's a good thing they realize that most people are probably trying to get the early access at least before the weekend and there's really no point to let people miss the weekend, since all that will do is generate a lot of ill-will for no good reason whatsoever.

[Don]

Saw the official Bioware developer posting saying they can't guaranteed days because a lightning bolt might hit the data center, because people can't tell the difference between getting screwed out of their early access or that a meteor hit Bioware headquarter and killing all the employees. I really don't get why the Bioware devs are posting as if people never played a MMORPG before. People expect a reasonably smooth launch and most of their early access days. If a server blew up after first day then yeah people can understand not getting their time, but people are assuming nothing extraordinary is supposed to happen in the early access days.

[Shrinweck]

Between the new Defense Grid DLC and the Tribes Ascend beta I'm not going to sweat it too much if early access gets messed up. I'm just hoping the server I choose isn't the second to last server to get brought up like in beta when it took them an hour to get to some of the U.S. servers after maintenance. They didn't set the best precedent in the world there, but then again it was beta.

Still not looking forward to Corso Riggs yelling in my headphones for how many hours it takes before the second smuggler companion. Then again, him being more complicated than a Sith zombie assassin, a Jedi malcontent, a droid, and a hunting-obsessed alien does make him seem more human. Based on hearing other people's companions yelling things randomly, I think I like the first Trooper companion the most.

[Don]

Seems like you won't know when your early access is until a few hours before it happens and there's a lot of activity over that.

I really don't understand what's the point to not let people know when they get in. You can pretend people don't actually take time off from work to try to be the first level 50, but people actually do this. No it doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, but it's almost like a rite of passage for a MMORPG and a lot of people really enjoy this. You don't have to go out of your way to accomodate this but letting people know when they can expect to get their head start is probably a good idea. I'm guessing as long as people get their early access on or before Friday it'll be okay because realistically most people can't do some serious grinding until weekend unless you're really hardcore. Due to the lack of a grace period, it looks like people trying to order the non digital version might be screwed since your copy of the game might not arrive on the 20th. I don't actually think the game needs a grace period, but I thought if you pre order something that's supposed to go on sale on the 20th, then the game should get to you on the 20th too.

One conspiracy theory says they want people to cancel their order so they can order it digitally from the Origin service (which would be more profit since there's no middleman). I ordered my copy digitally from Origin just because that way I don't have to worry about the copy not delivered on time but people should be free to order from other major retailers without feeling they're disadvantaged. It probably doesn't help that Walmart mysteriously canceled most preorders through them, even though that's probably not Bioware's fault.

[Shrinweck]

I ordered a digital copy from Origin, as well. Mostly because I figured there would be the least hassle and because I thought at the time that the game would require being ran through Origin. Thank God that isn't the case and all that. The only games I own hard copies of from recent years are StarCraft 2 and Fallout 3. Really can't be bothered with keeping track of security keys and DVDs. I made my point about preferring the digital copies of MMORPGs earlier in the thread (that they get updated so much that having a hard copy is a waste any way). It also keeps their costs lower, wastes less packaging (remember those HUGE ass waste of space boxes games used to come in? God damn!), and is one less thing to keep around.

I could care less about being one of the first people to get to level fifty, but I really want to get to the legacy system and reserve a cool name first. I still haven't decided on what I want yet, though and since it's unique (last I heard) across all servers, I want to beat the rush. I kind of wanted to go with Dantés from The Count of Monte Cristo, but they're not going to allow for accented e's and Dantes doesn't have that same feeling to it for me. I'll probably go with some kind of Planescape Torment reference. Actually, if I do that there's almost no point in me rushing to the Legacy system since there's only like three fucking guys out there that use the nick name I like and the chances of them playing SW:TOR, wanting to use the name for legacy, or even beating me to the Legacy system are pretty small.

[Don]

Yeah the Legacy system was another big potential reason for people to want to race. Again your system don't have to cater to strange behaviors but you really shouldn't offend those guys either without a good reason. Racing to level 50 is a very common thing to do, and it's not like supporting it by letting people know when they get their game somehow hurts yourself.

For that matter I'm not sure why the Legacy names have to be unique. Is there an imperial decree that says only one guy on the server can have the last name of "Skywalker"? I understand the first name for identification purposes, but why enforce that on last name? Is there going to be an imposter Dantes?

[Shrinweck]

It looks like I was wrong about it being unique across all servers and it looks like there's next to no functionality other than giving your character a last name. Guess it's still worth getting to the legacy system to level it before you make any other characters so you can get the benefits later.

[Don]

It was either changed or they phrased it wrong, but yes originally they did say that name has to be unique across all servers so I guess you might have to end up with "Dantes11112" in that case. I still don't see what's the point to enforce unique last name. Are they that afraid of people impersonating as someone else?

[Shrinweck]

Heh I agree somewhat but it does add a level of personalization to characters. Unique across ALL servers would be stupid.. basically anything that sounds like an actual last name would be taken immediately and you'd get to stupid spellings pretty quickly. Not that I don't expect to see plenty of that shit any way. It was common enough in the beta. It drives me crazy that these people can't come up with something else and have to be Lukke or whatever.

[Shrinweck]

Not much to really talk about with their forums down until the beginning of Early Access but apparently Ray Muzyka plays a Trooper.. which is kinda cool.

[Shrinweck]

I've chosen to make the Keller's Void server the home for my Republic PvE character.

[Alec]

I'm on Anchorhead...went ahead and reserved a bunch of names in every character slot. xD

[Shrinweck]

So far I'm amazed at how much more polished it is than the beta test I was part of. First of all everything seems so much more responsive and less glitchy on an overall scale. Secondly, whatever memory leak issue I was getting was squelched which is impressive. After hours worth of play before it was typically 3-5 minutes before my desktop was completely responsive again after quitting. Now it's less than a minute.

There are currently four people in Coruscant on my server lol. I'm too far ahead - I'm taking a break. I got past the head ache quest that completely sucked during beta when the area was mobbed and from here on it's somewhat smooth coasting even if it gets busier during my nap. Didn't bother reserving any names because the ones I use for MMORPGs are basically never taken.

The character I'll be playing as my main for now is Zulf, though, so, uh, beat the rush on a side character from an indie game heh

[Don]

Come to think of it, what's the point to stagger population unless you plan on never having at any point in the future to have a population online that matches that of the launch? If 1 million people logging on now melt the servers, that'd mean the only way to avoid it to ensure this never happens in the future too.

Right now I'm guessing if most people got their early start on or before Friday you probably won't have anything beyond the usual complaining, but if people who pre ordered didn't get the weekend headstart there might be some real damage. Might not be enough to matter but if this is a game that's supposed to dethrone WoW you also don't have that much margin of error (in terms of being able to dethrone WoW). In fact, someone might just go sue Bioware for false advertising since the preorder pages still say "You MAY get 5 days of pre start", if it turns out that there was no chance to get 5 days of pre start if you ordered past a certain point.

[kali o.]

Nice, we all picked different servers

Anyway, on Twin Spears (my cousin rolled there). Haven't had time to play much, as I built myself a new PC the last few days.

[Don]

I'm on Warriors of Shadow, looking at a 450 queue right now.

PvP in this game is surprisingly good, but that doesn't stop people from complaining they're losing. I actually win most of my games, for once. The funnest thing is to see people approach Warfronts like they're Sun Tzu's Art of War. Most of them boils down to the fact that if you can kill the other side without killing you, you will definitely win, and if the reverse is true you definitely won't win. Maybe 1 out of 10 fights where both sides are actually well matched enough where strategy might matter, but even then, it's more like whether you win a key 1 on 1 or 3 on 3 and you can't really plan those ahead of time.

[Shrinweck]

I unlocked legacy on a jedi knight and I've been messing around with alts ever since. Is everyones chapter one boss the most difficult thing to solo up to that point? My guy would thunderclap for two thousand of my health pretty constantly. I had to save all of my interrupt and damage mitigation skills for when he used this skill which was difficult because the casting time was damn near nonexistent. It's a level thirty-two quest and I probably died trying to kill him 10 times at thirty. I had to go back two levels later and I still died once. The second time I used every single "Oh, shit!" skill and item (thank god I'm biochem) the game gives me. I guess it did give chapter one a very satisfying conclusion, considering it's easy to just blow through the rest of the quests.

Any way, my memory leak bug on Taris is now a known issue. It hit my Jedi Knight at the exact same spot it did last time but I managed to GTFO before my character became unplayable (Bioware support is teleporting players out but I really like the Taris bonus series so I have my lower alts on hold until they figure out what is going on). In any case - if anyone is on Kellar's Void other than me my Republic characters are Rucks, Zulf, and Xachariah. My Empire character is Yemeth. It's weird having both an Assassin and Shadow that I have the intention of building the exact same haha. I like the gameplay mechanics enough that it isn't an issue and the storylines are both interesting, even if the overall storyline for the Consular is boring as shit, the steps on the way there are some of my favorite.

Also I love playing a pious asshole dogood Jedi so much.

I've now tried to get into both advanced classes of the bounty hunter and one of the trooper, but I've lost complete interest in playing the characters, even if the stories are really cool. I have a tendency of putting both hands on my keyboard during big fights which is basically impossible to do with a class with ranged AoE abilities that you have to click the ground to use.

I really need ONE of my characters to be dark side sooner or later.. I guess I still want to play an operative and marauder some day haha.

Edit: My server has a queue of 325 right now, as well... Gives me an opportunity to eat while I get through it, at least.

Edit 2: Looks like they fixed Taris last night.. that was certainly quicker than I anticipated

[Shrinweck]

My queue was half of what it was last night and took maybe 10% of the time to get through, so it looks like things are getting improved there on servers that aren't getting absolutely terrorized by population.

[Don]

They probably just increased the number of people allowed in a server. Usually most games seem to play it safe at 2000ish per server but while that might be the extent of server capacity 10 years ago, you'd think you can do better than that now. I know you can't expect server capacity to increase at the same speed of processing power but running 5000 people on one server was doable 10 years ago even if the experience wasn't great.

[Shrinweck]

Does anyone have a character with treasure hunting 100+? I've noticed that I'm failing 20-33% of the missions I'm sending my companions to do and this doesn't compare with success rates with the other mission skills (or at least the ones I have a lot of experience with - slicing, diplomacy). It's really fucking annoying considering how varied the drops I need from this skill are.

I'm just guessing my luck with this skill is such shit that karma-wise I'm due for like 10 crits in a row.

[Don]

I have Treasure Hunting at about 250. The chance of success is more dependent on what your companion's affection for you. Sending someone with 0 has a very high chance to fail. I only build up affection on one character so I always send that guy to do stuff that are like Rich yield since it's too risky to fail and waste an hour + 1K credits. I'd send the low/no affection guys for stuff like Abundant/Moderate Lockboxes since those seem to have a relatively high chance of success since it's a net losing proposition (you usually find a box with credit that covers about 90% of the cost of the mission).

[Shrinweck]

I haven't had that problem with any of my other characters with other skills though. Very annoying

[Don]

I don't think either of those offer blue items or very useful stuff. The biochem medical stuff is only useful for making potions for yourself so it's not nearly as valuable as purple crafting materials that can be used for anyone's gear.

[Shrinweck]

Diplomacy drops blues and purples for biochem. Unconsumable medpacks, stimpacks, and adrenals are extremely powerful and because of the way the game works the items get used far longer than the shitty color crystals I get from treasure hunting and artifice. Would have just gone biochem again if I didn't feel the need to explore other possibilities heh. Also used for implants which provide wildly high stat boosts in blue/purple variants and can be shared between players without the biochem skill, unlike the uncomsumable.

Slicing missions offer blue and purple crafting missions and tons and tons of credits. It's all balanced usefulness-wise, I just don't understand why the failure rates aren't. To give some perspective, I'm sending my 0 affection robot on missions for slicing for a grade above where I am in level and succeeding basically always, even in rich/abundant/bountiful.

Given the agent a try now and ended up going sniper since a blaster rifle variant of the scoundrel I already play didn't interest me. The cover system isn't as annoying as I found in beta since rarely do I hit that much lag since release.

[Eric]

[Don]

It's kind of funny if you read the crew mission dialogues, my droid took out a rancor by himself.

[Alec]

"Oh, master, I think I've really outdone myself!"

*fails mission*

[Shrinweck]

Yeah the voice cues for that stuff drive me crazy. And the mission report popping up mid fight is probably the most annoying thing in the game right now. At best it fucks up the view and at worst it makes my desktop stutter and fucks me over for a second.

[Don]

I think the voices for mission results are exactly opposite of what happens right now.

[Shrinweck]

Hey guys, I was going to post some information but I have none at this time. I also have no ETA for when I will have this information. I will update you guys before the end of the hour about continuing to have no information.

[Shrinweck]

Finished chapter one with my Sith Inquisitor and the boss went down so much easier than the Jedi Knight one that I'm actually pretty disappointed. I guess it would make sense that Sith Warriors and Jedi knights would have the hardest bosses to solo since they're the only classes without a healing spec? *shrug*

[Don]

The single player aspect of this game is grossly imbalanced, probably because the developers thought the two advanced classes are really similar even though there's nothing remotely similar between an Assassin or a Sorcerer. There are bosses that drop huge ground effect spells that are trivial for a range class to avoid but as a melee you can't even attack the boss without killing yourself even if you knew where the ground effect is. Another stupid kind of fight is as an assassin you have to fight two Strongs that are already in combat, except you can't CC mobs that are already in combat (unless you count an 8s Whirlwind), while a Sorcerer can! So you just die horribly and respawn to try it again (and then you can CC the mobs because you died and mobs will stay up) and usually beat it easily.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah there are definitely some boss fights that they could have put more thought into. Starting ranged classes right next to elites at the beginning of a fight happens fairly commonly. Sometimes the boss will immediately knock you back 10-20 meters which is actually a cool way to start a boss battle, but more common is that you just have to expect a death and then come respawn and start the battle on your own terms. Rare but common enough to be an issue. Still.. dying should never be a viable strategy to approaching a boss fight.

I haven't had too much trouble fighting two strongs if Khem is my companion, since he can just take the agro from one and the second one can just get hammered down, even if it's attacking me, since Assassins get multiple "Oh shit" skills, but namely that 50% to defense one helps in these situations. I rushed the first planet after chapter one with my assassin to get the next companion and she doesn't seem that great so far, but at least I can finally play nice in conversations with my light side assassin character.

I definitely experienced this problem earlier today with my operative character that I made today after deleting my sniper. The end of Balmorra's imperial agent class quest has a boss that does that thing where he knocks you back 10-20 meters in the beginning of the fight. GREAT if you're a sniper, since you can just get up and get into cover and start shooting him, but as an operative it made me useless for the beginning of the fight since it was coupled with a slow. To make matters worse he has two AoEs. These AoEs will never, ever hit you if you're a sniper, since the only companion you have at that point will hold his agro perfectly. But when you have to get into melee range as an operative, he tears you the hell up. In any case, the fight starts after the conversation and I died and even when I respawned and got to start the fight on my own terms, I only got out with next to no hit points and my companion downed. On the other hand, I don't think my sniper took even 15% damage in the fight. The reverse is true often enough, but it can just be frustrating how inconsistent it all is.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if it's grossly imbalanced, it's just that based on how diverse the classes can be, building boss battles can be tough so they opted for some being real hard and some being real easy depending on your AC

In any case, my operative is my only dark side alt out of 7 (all 22-33) and I'm having fun with him. I really like Kaliyo and I'm basically playing dark side just to please her since I find her character so fun. She's a lot like Jack from Mass Effect 2 but doesn't appear to not so secretly just need someone to listen to her. This probably means she's a psychopath, but I still like her.

[Don]

The game is very unfavored toward melee in story mode since so bosses uses so many ground effect spells you're basically reduced to useless. One of the boss you fight has 3 ground effect and he heals himself too. He does a very trivial amount of damage but between his massive HP + heals, he's likely to outlast any character who cannot heal so you've no chance of beating him as an Assassin unless you pick a companion who can heal.

Later on you'll have a hard time tanking 2 strongs without dying or using cooldowns. I think you're supposed to just CC one off the bat with something like Whirlwind except Assassins can't use Whirlwind (only lasts 8 seconds) and Mind Trap requires you to be in stealth.

[Don]

I'm at rank 53 for Valor now. The PvP in this game is actually pretty well balanced except that Operatives can kill anybody in one hit when coming out of stealth (thankfully almost no one plays that class), and that healers are mostly immortal as long as they didn't get one shot kill. It's more of a symptom of people sucking + none of the healer class in this game look remotely like traditional healers so people don't really who to focus on at this point. It's really annoying the losers who leave your game immediately because they don't see 4 level 50s, even though those guys are likely to walk into another death squad and lose terribly anyway since they're clearly not good enough to try to turn the game around by themselves. I'm on Empire and the highest Republic guys pretty much group with any random guys and the very top players actually try to turn games around, and even in an losing effort they rack up 10 medals easy, and arguably if you manage to lose say Voidstar in 7 minutes while getting 9 medals that's better than either a 5 minute Huttball stomp (you can't possibly get more than about 3 medals that way) or a 15 minute drawn out battle where you get 10 (and most people suck so they can't even get 10 in a drawn out battle). I can consistently get 8-9 medals unless my team is absolutely destroyed, i.e. the other side can camp our base if it was possible to go there. Huttball is actually pretty easy to get medals since if you're against a superior team they'll have like 4 guys playing game as if it's football doing fancy passes, while your 8 guys maul the 4 guys who aren't part of the passing team for easy medals. You'd end up losing 0 to 6 but your guys should have 5-6 medals each compared to 2-3 on the winning side and arguably get better reward. And no that's really not broken because you have 4 guys who literally did nothing the whole game in terms of fighting besides passing the ball back and forth (and rely on their gear to survive).

For PvE the game seems to be pretty easy to get gear, but then history has shown making gear hard to get doesn't seem to make people last any longer so it seems like a workable model. The difference between epic 58 (hard operations) and even epic 49 (player crafted) doesn't seem to be that big. I've ran into a few guys with 20K HP in the warzones and I assume that's PvE gear because Battlemaster (top PvP gear) doesn't seem to have that much HPs, but since that stuff doesn't have expertise you're not horribly outclassed if you have at least the tier below (Champion PvP) which isn't that hard to get.

[Shrinweck]

After playing my Sith Juggernaut up to 26 with the tanking tree and actually having fun, I decided to make my shadow more tank than DPS. I'm really having fun with a class I didn't have much motivation to play earlier. The companion tanks really kind of blow compared to their healer and DPS counterparts, so taking the role for yourself makes things happen a lot more easily. Being an avoidance tank has its issues but most of the time I seem to do as well as my juggernaut. Makes up for the advantage ranged DPS characters have by quite a bit. Still contemplating doing the same thing for my assassin who is bound to be full up on bonus experience right now.

Got my Guardian up to Hoth but I'm gonna little him sit for a couple more days for the bonus exp before I push further than the initial quests there. Letting my operative sit for three or four days for the bonus exp, as well, since I got him up to Alderaan and that's my least favorite imperial planet so far.