**OFFICIAL** Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread

[Redinit]

Since this weekend is "free trial" weekend, I'm about to dive into SWTOR. Never played an MMO before, but I've watched my friend play it, and I have a new PC with no games to play.

 

[BenSkywalker]

If you like a DoT based rotation go 31 madness, get creeping terror and Death Field should always be your opener if possible. Full Columni gear on a dummy should be in the 1.1K range for a Sorc dps.

The hybrid spec was nerfed into the ground with 1.2, Deep madness is the best setup now for mobility fights, only losing marginally to deep lightning on fights where movement isn't key(and lightning rotation is a pita and very RNG/proc dependant).

 

[kyonu]

Since this weekend is "free trial" weekend, I'm about to dive into SWTOR. Never played an MMO before, but I've watched my friend play it, and I have a new PC with no games to play.

Be warned. The game is decently fun if you have friends, but the bugs will shove a lot of people out. They shoved me out. =\

 

[Redinit]

Be warned. The game is decently fun if you have friends, but the bugs will shove a lot of people out. They shoved me out. =\

Such as what? Right now I'm messing around with video settings

 

[zinfamous]

Such as what? Right now I'm messing around with video settings

i can't think of any bugs beyond "minor annoyance" in this game. just a few issues with weird companion behavior, cosmetics, and the occasional moment when you find yourself implanted within an "unstuckable" rock (yes, this happened to me wihtin the first few days of plyaing the game...not too long ago.)

He must have played early at release and not bothered long after that? There is absolutely no bug in this game that makes it "unplayable," even for the most jaded person going in with an absolute determination to not like what they are about to experience.

that being said--there are a ton of bugs--just quirky and easily discountable.

 

[darkewaffle]

Yea I've been playing since release and there have been very few, if any, 'gamebreaking' bugs. Minor ones I see regularly though are stuff like companion skin/clothing getting an incorrect texture, NPC eyes turning kind of 'black' or 'mirror' textured, and some audio effects being in the wrong areas or 'persisting' at times. Trivial at worst really.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

SWTOR was probably the smoothest rollout I've ever experienced. The only downgrade for me was Bioware/EA's decision to 'ramp up' the queues. Seemed absolutely insane to do this. Took them a couple of weeks, but finally the queues got shorter and we could all enjoy the game.

After last night we're 4/5 HM Eternity Vault. Just ran out of time last night.

Since my original 8 raiders we've had to start rotating some fresh 50s into the mix. So now we're running EV on Sunday nights starting with Story Mode to gear up the fresh 50. We then roll into HM EV with my original raid crew. When we got to Soa we still had a good 75-80 minutes to down him for the Infernal title.

 

[s44]

You only get the title for finishing it in time on Nightmare, even though the buff appears on any mode.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

1.3 patch details

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/21/star-wars-the-old-republics-13-patch-revealed

I find it funny that all the things that people defended SWTOR for not having at launch are now being put in. IMO I think its a great decision that should of been put in in the first place. Their original reason for not including a group finder because they wanted people to discover was stupid with almost all of the instance entrances being on the ship.

 

[coloumb]

Group finder should shut the whiners up - but unless it has a teleport option, you're still going to spend a lot of time getting to the same place/instance.

Ability to augment anything and mod any armor/items is a good step towards individuality - but they will need to go a few steps further and allow us to ink/dye our armors and customize our character's appearance [eye color, hair color/style, skin color, tattoos, body type/shape, etc]

I'm curious as to what kind of limits will be placed on character transfers and if it will cost anything. Maybe I should download/install the PTR since most of the guild only logs in for RAID events...

 

[KentState]

It seems that 1.3, while having necessary changes, is too little and probably weeks away to keep my sub going for now. I may return after 1.4 or 1.5 if Diablo is worn out by then. It's such a shame that new MMORPG's seem to regress back to square one and then have to be built up over four years to match other established offerings. Pretty much would be like a new NFL game coming out and barely equaling what Madden 2001 had and needing 10 years to catch up.

 

[darkewaffle]

Makes sense to me to not immediately have a groupfinder option in-game, if it were my new game I'd want people out and on the planets at least initially. Now that most people have been through them some will inevitably prefer the shortcut though. Personally I haven't ever done a non hardmode flashpoint so not a big deal to me.

I definitely appreciate the augment tables change though, I think that's how it should have been done all a long. Or at least implemented concurrently with crit->augmentslot change. Now I wish I'd kept that sorc set from Taris though lol, was easily my favorite look.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Makes sense to me to not immediately have a groupfinder option in-game, if it were my new game I'd want people out and on the planets at least initially. Now that most people have been through them some will inevitably prefer the shortcut though. Personally I haven't ever done a non hardmode flashpoint so not a big deal to me.

I definitely appreciate the augment tables change though, I think that's how it should have been done all a long. Or at least implemented concurrently with crit->augmentslot change. Now I wish I'd kept that sorc set from Taris though lol, was easily my favorite look.

That means you have never ran The Esseles, Taral V or Maelstrom Prison Hard Modes or the Empire equivilents of those. You have to run through those before hard mode unlocks. It is a shame, they are not bad hard modes. Taral V hard mode is a quick 25 minutes.

 

[darkewaffle]

Only hardmodes I've run are Lost Island and Kaon iirc, so yes, that would be correct. And even then that's only because they give Black Hole Commendations for the weekly lol.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Only hardmodes I've run are Lost Island and Kaon iirc, so yes, that would be correct. And even then that's only because they give Black Hole Commendations for the weekly lol.

Wow, very interesting. Why are you not interested? I get on vent with my buddies and we have a blast

What else is there to do? I heard OPs takes 1-2 evenings at most (we don't have 8 solid people yet, we are at like 6-7) so that leaves you with no logging in, PVP or... what?

 

[s44]

That means you have never ran The Esseles, Taral V or Maelstrom Prison Hard Modes or the Empire equivilents of those. You have to run through those before hard mode unlocks.

Actually, you don't have to finish the normal mode first. Just pick up the quest, go through the initial convos, and tell the door guard to start hard mode instead of normal.

You do have to finish Taral before Maelstrom though. All the hardmode flashpoints are worth running - it's the secondary story chain of the game.

 

[darkewaffle]

Wow, very interesting. Why are you not interested? I get on vent with my buddies and we have a blast

What else is there to do? I heard OPs takes 1-2 evenings at most (we don't have 8 solid people yet, we are at like 6-7) so that leaves you with no logging in, PVP or... what?

Well for the last week we've all been playing D3 lol. But yea, we did mostly ops and PVP and the occasional dailies. Probably in a couple weeks when the interest in D3 wanes we'll get back into EC hardmode. In the meantime I'm content playing the AH on my own.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Wow, very interesting. Why are you not interested? I get on vent with my buddies and we have a blast

What else is there to do? I heard OPs takes 1-2 evenings at most (we don't have 8 solid people yet, we are at like 6-7) so that leaves you with no logging in, PVP or... what?

How well geared is your group? We've 7-manned EV SM before. Heck, we even brought in a fresh 50 sorc one night and he helped on heals. Your group could look into that. At least it will get you some exposure to what the raid entails. And show others in your guild that you're progressing. Give the others something to shoot for.

 

[ArchAngel777]

How well geared is your group? We've 7-manned EV SM before. Heck, we even brought in a fresh 50 sorc one night and he helped on heals. Your group could look into that. At least it will get you some exposure to what the raid entails. And show others in your guild that you're progressing. Give the others something to shoot for.

This is a great suggestion. I will take this up with the guys. Thanks.

 

[Wordplay]

Group finder should shut the whiners up - but unless it has a teleport option, you're still going to spend a lot of time getting to the same place/instance.

Ability to augment anything and mod any armor/items is a good step towards individuality - but they will need to go a few steps further and allow us to ink/dye our armors and customize our character's appearance [eye color, hair color/style, skin color, tattoos, body type/shape, etc]

I'm curious as to what kind of limits will be placed on character transfers and if it will cost anything. Maybe I should download/install the PTR since most of the guild only logs in for RAID events...

Doubt it. Being that it is single server only, low pop servers will still have an issue getting groups. Even with server transfers there will be issues still. Especially on the servers that everyone leaves and only a few people remain.

If they merge servers then I would think a single server LFG would work.

 

[darkewaffle]

Yea, I think they actually overallocated servers for launch. Or rather divided them into too many small servers rather than a smaller number of large servers; personally I think some server merges would be appropriate. Unfortunately merging servers is no small task if for no reason other than naming conflicts between characters, guilds, legacies, friend lists and the like.

 

[coloumb]

Doubt it. Being that it is single server only, low pop servers will still have an issue getting groups. Even with server transfers there will be issues still. Especially on the servers that everyone leaves and only a few people remain.

If they merge servers then I would think a single server LFG would work.

It may reduce the chat spam of "LFG" requests...but that's about it. There will still be complaints about not filling a group.

Which reminds me - whenever I run dailies it's interesting to see "LFG for [heroic 2/4]" with no response when there are plenty of other level 50's on in the same area. I think most people have the same mentality as a guild mate/friend - he won't group up unless asked or if another guild member is online and is someone who likes to run dailies.

 

[JoshGuru7]

I agree with the sentiment that the group finder is underwhelming because it is not cross server. Most of the benefit of this will be on higher population servers where it is already easy to find groups for things if you advertise for them in the fleet. This will make things a little easier there for all of the lone wolf types who do not like using the chat system or joining guilds, but I don't think it solves the main problem of server population imbalances.

I also believe that you can implement cross server PvP and LFG tools without hurting the community. The solution is a two tiered approach where you place users in a queue for their own server first, then the cross server queue after a short waiting period (2 minutes). Maintain a black lists of users based on optional feedback after grouping (do not group again) that apply to both queues. This puts a bias towards grouping people from the same server together but also gives them the option to do a run with others rather than doing nothing.

In my experience, time spent LFG is a critical factor for endgame satisfaction for much of the more casual player base. It is easy for the hardcore among us to say "well why don't you join a guild" or "why don't you start a group" but the reality is that many players at endgame will post at most one lfg message on the fleet and wait around for 60 seconds or so to see if they get an immediate reply. If they do not then they assume they cannot group in that session and go do something else.

 

[JoshGuru7]

Which reminds me - whenever I run dailies it's interesting to see "LFG for [heroic 2/4]" with no response when there are plenty of other level 50's on in the same area. I think most people have the same mentality as a guild mate/friend - he won't group up unless asked or if another guild member is online and is someone who likes to run dailies.

This is my attitude. I enjoy the teamwork behind grouping when it is organized and I know the people but will rarely join a group I do not know. That stuff becomes a chore really quickly if you do not have any rapport with your group members. How long do we wait for that guy who just disconnected? Do we have any heals now that my healing companion has been dismissed? Do my group members have the same perspective on crowd control that I do? I would much rather just do them later with friends over voice chat.

 

[s44]

Hey Dahak! The AT Republic guild is ridiculously geared in PvP now, so that WZ was a bit one-sided...