SW:TOR

The quest for gear continues – at the time of writing this first sentence (Saturday before going to bed) I have finished the Personal Conquest on 9 characters (and a half) and my Trooper has a 338 blue Earpiece, and I need roughly 50 FP-1 thingies to do the last upgrade step – which would mean either finishing Conquest on one or two more toons and converting again, or doing 2 weekly zones on a Level 80 – I guess I’ll do the latter tomorrow.

Ok, so Sunday afternoon I had some time and finished this. It’s not that straightforward.

• Upgrading the 340 Prototype via guide – ok
• Deconstructing it – ok, although the window seems different
• Finding out what to buy – kinda fine, 10% Accuracy, then Alacrity, the rest red mods/armoring/barrel/hilt
• Trying to buy on another char – nope
• Putting the “Bound to Legacy” stuff into the Legacy bank – nope
• Mailing them to another toon so the 2h timer vanishes and you can put them in the bank – yes

So I equipped three of them now, 334, 329 and 328 (still missing some other slots).

Now to finally play the game! Just kidding, it was a nice goal and it took 10 days. Now I wanna continue the story (one char on each side) and look at the new zones, also finishing the implant quest (something something 100 charges).

…or whatever they are called (Commendations).

Thursday after work I wanted to check how far my Powertech was progressed (I thought close to LotS content) and noticed there was quite a bit of mid-/end-Onslaught story missing, so I got to work. It was fun enough, except that one horrible flashpoint (Echoes of Oblivion) and when no one showed up for M+ I continued and got to 80 and finished the Conquest as well. Then I wanted to try something non-endgame and went to Ilum on my 54 Sniper (also talking to all my neglected companions on the ship for half an hour) and got to 58. Still don’t really like that class, but Engineer is somewhat better than Marksmanship.

So regarding the Conquests, maybe it’s doable on all 13 Level 75 chars, because as soon as you ding 76 you will get the 200 Commendations and not just some piece of gear (which is also helpful, the Powertech is now 80 and still in 306 gear, that might hurt when doing dailies…). Not sure I really want to do all that, but we’ll see, 3 down and 10 to go.

Friday I specced a couple more characters (default Vulkk.com solo build as I don’t have a clue anymore anyway) and finished Ziost on my Assassin (just one level, boo), failed the droid quest of course, and did some Heroics to push the Trooper to 80 and finish the Conquest. Man, Commando just plays so nice and easy, especially compared to Sage. Apparently there’s a 6000 Conquest Commendation weekly cap, which I will never ever reach. OK.

Saturday was a bit more with flashpoints and some Heroic quests, Scoundrel to 80 and Conquest done, also the Assassin is 77 with a Conquest done (total: 7, but one didn’t give Commendations).

Sunday… Jedi Shadow (Black Hole and.. Czerka I think), Operative (Balmorra+Dromund Kaas), and Sentinel (Ziost+Yavin). (total: 10)

Monday: Mercenary (total: 12, of which 11 count, and I forgot to list one of them somewhere)

So the verdict is that reaching the Personal Conquest goal on a couple character doesn’t seem to hard. Should you try to cram in 12 of them while also having to spec and sort out their bank? Maybe not. Also the only char I didn’t manage to do was the Marauder, but it’s Monday and close to midnight. Ah well, I tried. 😛

So where do we stand now?

• Level 80: Powertech, Sage, Commando, Scoundrel
• Level 77: Juggernaut, Operative, Mercenary, Assassing, Guardian, Sentinel, Shadow
• Level 75: Marauder
• Level 58: Sniper

Looking over my character list got me thinking that unlike in WoW I don’t have a near perfect recollection when and how I created every character, but that’s why you have a blog, I guess.

• Mirialan Sage – created at launch, so Decmber 2011
• Cyborg Powertech – created before Makeb, maybe even close to launch
• Twi’lek Scoundrel – I think this was the third one, not sure when
• Rattataki Sniper – only 58 now, but apparently created before 2018
• Chiss Juggernaut – created in October 2017, deleted the Sith later
• Zabrak Trooper – created before 2018, but only leveled later
• Sith Assassin – October 2017
• Human Operative – November/December 2017 (deleted and remade Human from Cyborg I think)
• Miraluka Sentinel – November/December 2017
• Mirialan Shadow – July 2018
• Human Marauder – Level 50 in December 2018
• Cathar Guardian – Level 20 in December 2018
• Twi’lek Mercenary – December 2018
• Togruta Sorcerer – July 2020

So this means no new character for the last 6.5 years 5 years! (Oh no, an error. The Sith Sorcerer that is Level 1 is from 2018, the Togruta one is from 2020.)

Very atypical for my play style, still. But I am missing Vanguard and Gunslinger and I already made a list with which race/gender combos I am missing and would maybe use…

Then again I was really surprised how well that worked out with checking back and having posts up for SWTOR (also surprising how much overlap between games when it comes to class names, or at least some of them). Not even sure I could do it in such a complete way for WoW, but maybe I should try that as well. Just not for all 30…

After getting a quick lay of the land (as far as that’s possible) of my unlocked characters on Tuesday I resubscribed to SWTOR last night! It’s been a little over 3 years.

My characters were mostly 75 (well, 12 of them, plus a 54, a 16, and 2 classes missing) and had never seen Legacy of the Sith, but 2 had been to Onderon, so probably also finished it.

Of course this was again motivated by playing together, so I didn’t have to look up everything first, but got some hints. So I sat down and did the (short) LotS story on my Sage and was very, very surprised how fast I dinged 80 after just 2-3 long quests. Like, not even without the XP buff I would have finished half the content before that.

Anyway, playing Telekinesis Sage wasn’t that awesome this time around, but what can you do if it’s one of your two most-progressed ones?

This guide piqued my interest but meant I needed 400 Conquest Commendations, not 200, so we started doing some Dailies on my Juggernaut and he finished his Weekly Conquest at Level 77.9 and so I can buy that blue earpiece now, just not upgrade it yet. If the calculations are correct, you need to finish the Conquest goal 30 times to get a set of gear. 5 x 180 + 3 x 170 + 60 = 1470 FP-1 Stabilizers needed, and you need 2 chars to get 400 Commendations to buy 100. Unless you get some from other sources, but no, this is not confusing at all. Glad that gear is not that important to me, but I guess it’s a good idea to work on this.

So I guess the plan for now is finishing the quest line on the Sage, and getting a few more Conquest goals, which should already bring the characters that finish it half way to 80, and next week to 80 (or if I put in a little extra time). With the XP event maybe I’ll also focus on the Sniper to get her the missing 26 levels and also start my missing advanced classes, we will see.

I think it’s a little funny that for 12 max-level characters at the time, only having finished KotFE/KotET on two characters and the first 9 chapters on one… well, it’s not a lot and they were released in late 2015 and late 2016, and I played a lot after that, but they were just too weird and not really my cup of tea, and I guess I put in most of my play time in 2017-2019 there, so Onslaught had not yet launched and I was not missing out on story on those 9-10 characters. That’s also why in contrast to everything up to Ilum and Rishi… the “new” zones of the last 5-6 years are kinda unknown for me. Guess I should push that Juggernaut through KotFE and the remaining expansions and then actually do it a couple more times, if I can muster the will. Otherwise the other ones are set to only do dailies and conquests and achievements on the old planets. It’s a bit weird. Or I could just accept the default choices for KotFE/KotET and not worry, at least on some chars…

Today I finished the content I hadn’t done in SWTOR’s Onslaught expansion and as I didn’t subscribe, I think there’s no point in continuing now. Sure, there’s this one char I’ve been running through KotFE, I’ll continue that – but I noticed that doing the Weekly Conquest goal on a 75 char (who has already maxed out to 99% just before 77 and can’t continue) it’s kinda pointless. I can get some Tech Fragments (and I’m nearly capped at 11k) but all the gear is being disintegrated anyway, there are no more Renown Levels to be done, the only thing is the kinda huge undertaking of trying to complete the season, and I’m not really sure that’s a goal I want to take on right now.

The Onslaught content was relatively good, I guess, but I hate the fact that the meat (after Mek-Sha, so the content that wasn’t here at launch, I think?) were only 2 Solo-Story instances, which I had wanted to duo. Why the hell, Bioware? Why do I have to play alone? Also they’re a joke in 306 gear from a difficulty perspective, but I can forgive that – but not being able to play them in a group is really meh.

So yeah, I guess my plans (after the Sage is caught up) are now: Finish Onslaught again on my Bounty Hunter, progress through KotFE/KotET on Juggernaut, ignore Trooper 🙁 and that’s it.

I know, I know, if I had just subscribed I could continue with the story – but I wonder why everything feels so pointless. I was deliberately taking a few days to get acquainted with the game again and somehow it’s not really drawing me in.

OK, so after trying to get back into SWTOR a bit (spreadsheets were involved), there are a few things that happened.

• As a Preferred Player (not subscribed) I “activated” 6 more of my characters (the last one you played stays active anyway)
• They all seem to be item Level 305-306 and Level 75
• Managed to reach the Conquest goal on 3 of them
• You can still easily waste 50k points by finishing the wrong thing on the wrong toon, I could have had 4 now
• Made it to Galactic Season Level 4.5
• I am nearly caught up to the end of Onslaught on one character
• Started KotFE on one character
• None of the characters I looked at have a Level 50 companion. Highest I saw are 45 and 44

So I have 12 characters at the old max level of 75 and only 2 of them had finished KotET and a third had finished KotFE. For the majority of my active play time not all the companions had been back, and I hated that – also back when I did it it was kind of a slog, on the Sage a bit and on the Operative even more (I think on the Bounty Hunter it was fine). So that’s the reason why I never did it.

For the one character where I started KotFE today I noticed that I kinda remember a lot oft this, despite only having done it three times, and I don’t even know how long ago the first time was. In my mind I had this dreadful stretch of time, but if you spacebar hard enough (just skimming the options to select) and I was SO surprised how quickly it goes – but maybe my Sith Juggernaut in 306 gear just kills everything very quickly and I don’t have to search for things. But still:

• Chapter 1 – 13 min
• Chapter 2 – 15 min
• Chapter 3 – 12 min
• Chapter 4 – 25 min
• Chapter 5 – 12 min

I guess I can do this. So while I’m not making any grand plans, I’ll see if I can push him through this and then all the way through Onslaught in the next weeks and maybe do a Conquest or two per week.

SWTOR’s new expansion Legacy of the Sith has dropped and I actually patched up and logged in!

There has been a huge UI overhaul and the SWTOR subreddit seems to collectively hate it. I’m not super happy with some of the things, but overall I don’t see a problem – but I’ve not done a lot of things yet. Yes, the class icons are an abomination and I really hope they’ll patch them…

I did play through the “Echoes of Oblivion” thing of one of the last patches last night, and while I liked it overall, I am not a fan of this type of setting (to avoid spoilers), I prefer more non-abstract down-to-earth missions.

According to this neat flowchart it seems I have 2 instances lined up, then I will run into the wall that is “must be a subscriber to play the new expansion”, but I’ve not even logged in more than 2 (Republic) characters as of now, and I’ve been away for more than a year (last SWTOR post in September 2020), so I first need to find out where in the story I stand and maybe I have some catch-up to do anyway. Won’t hurt to familiarize myself with some of my toons again, and right now I don’t mind catching up with older content – but of course I won’t repeat this 10 times…

As I wrote this week I’m still 100% unsure whether to resub WoW for 9.2, so I think it’s a bad idea to sub SWTOR now – but if WoW doesn’t happen or if I’m gone again after a month, then this is a possibility. I guess having someone at home who has started playing again (and actually managing to get over 100 renown levels in the last week to get that “every class to 100” achievement) has helped the hype factor – as usual it’s better to play with friends.

No post for a month, no SWTOR post for 6 weeks.

Today I finally cleaned out my Legacy Cargohold and distributed gear to the toons with missing 306 sets. A few items missing here and there, 1-2 are only at 305, but the rest of the dozen is at 306 and I’m just missing a few set pieces.

Also just finished the original class mission on my Sniper, didn’t hate playing her from Level 30 on as at the start. She’s 54 now and so I unlocked Rattataki, the last missing launch race.

Managed to finish my Conquests on most toons most weeks and so I had quite a few Tech Fragments to spend. All in all, quite boring to write about but it kept me busy.

Back from a mini vacation, now nearly a week of nothing planned, it’s too hot here anyway.

Been playing a lot of SWTOR again, noticed that I didn’t train any char since 70, but apparently there was only one new skill at 72. Done some Conquests, Guardian is 71 and has finished Yavin 4, Sniper is 31 and has finished Alderaan. Not having much fun playing Operative or Scoundrel, but renewed interest in Shadow and Assassin.

No real goals, but gear grinding is going relatively well, at 297ish now.

My main problem right now is running out of bank space, as usual.

After like 3 weeks of players raging Bioware finally managed to fix the Casino Event and that was the time for me to join it. Ain’t nobody got time to faff about with buggy events that are not so fun anyway.

Apparently I had taken part already in 2018 and had a few of the easy achievements already. By doing my dailies and weeklies for the last weeks I had amassed something like 12 Emperor chips (those for the bugged machines) and so I spent them, winning I don’t know how many Kingpin tokens and could get to play. I don’t actually like this slot machine stuff, I am like 0% susceptible to this type of gambling, so my goal (besides getting all the achievements) was to be able to spend all those damn chips and get rid of them in my currency tab, winning wasn’t so important as a short-term goal. By the way it works you have like a 50% chance to get your token back as a consolidation prize… But in the end I made it. Spent a few hours this weekend, usually parked between 2 Kingpin machines, reading something on the left monitor and clicking the 2 slot machines on the right screen. Not my kinda fun, really. But I made it and in the end I had like 112 Golden Certificates (you need 98 to buy all the achievement stuff, 1 Rancor, 1 Mercenary Contract, 2 Mounts, and 3 Decoration items) and I had a few spare for some more decoration. Nice. I still have like 200 Kingpin chips on some characters but I only need 1 or 2 Golden Certificates more for the one decoration I couldn’t afford and that would be nice to have. Apparently I’m just missing the Republic story line (might do later) and the secret achievement, bah.

In other news, the Guardian has still not reached 75, but I’m done with my 11 Conquests this week and my gear level is ~290 already despite buying a few of the expensive 3000 tech fragment pieces and only going random with the spares. All in all a successful week and still enjoying most of it, despite the casino grind.

I haven’t exactly kept track, but I think I have 3-4 characters just before Renown rank 20 now, the rest is 3-10. So the next goal is put a little time into the Guardian and I also need to do swoop racing once more this week.