SW:TOR

Once upon a time at launch

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I was reading and commenting on a post by Shintar about Operations in SWTOR and was looking up some things in my achievements and on my old SWTOR blog that I started at launch. To cut excitement short it ran for 34 days and had 10 posts. I won’t link to it, but I will start a series and quote and comment on those old posts, from a “now, nearly 7 years later” perspective. It also serves as a proper testament of time, because who knows when that tumblr blog will vanish.

Dec 19 2011 – 11:42 pm – Hello, world!

What is NAMEOFSITE you ask? We don’t know yet, but if Bioware ever releases an API (like Blizzard’s WoW Armory) we’ll surely create cool things with it.

Yeah well, never happened. Too bad. My enthusiasm for creating a proper fan site died there.
 

Dec 20 2011 6:29 am – First release impressions

The game is scheduled to be opened at 06:00 in my time zone so the alarm at 05:50 ended my sleep.
Tried to login, got to confirm some EULA again and an Origin account seemed to be created for me now.
Can’t login. “You have no active subscription” in the Launcher, but can login to Origin.com.
The account page says “You’ve subscribed. Thank you.” on the main page and “Your subscription information cannot be accessed at this time. Please try again later.” on the detail page.
Seems I’m not the only one with this problem.
Ah well, MMO launches without problems are overrated. Let’s get to work and try to head home sooner than usual 🙂
Update 06:30 CET: Problem acknowledged
Update 07:00 CET: Problem fixed, it seems – too bad I’m at work now 🙁

Never play on patch release day! Always true. Pretty amazed some of these forum links still work.
 

Dec 21 2011 12:41 pm – Day 1 wrapup

My male Mirialan Jedi Sage hit level 10, I’ve played around 8h (minus some breaks) and so far I really like it.
Yay:

  • The CGI scenes are really cool
  • The dialog system is really cool
  • Combat is quite ok after an hour
  • The storyline was awesome
  • Questing with map and hints and codex is fun
  • Everything was stable on launch day

Nay:

  • My system runs WoW just fine with high details, TOR is stuttering on medium
  • Windowed fullscreen doesn’t seem optimal yet
  • Mouse sensitivity feels hard to adjust
  • A login queue of 300 (means 20-30min) at 4 in the afternoon

No idea yet:

  • My crew skills are Synthweaving, Archaelogy and Underworld Trading, not used them
  • Haven’t tried a Flashpoint or a PvP
  • I’m on a German server, I always tried to avoid those before

I’m still (again?) on a German server, IIRC first we were merged together with another one, and then last year all onto one again. I’m not interacting with many people, so I have no opinion right now. As I’m playing in English, maybe the EU server would’ve been the better choice. Many positive points here. I still like the dialog system, I still like the class stories. Not sure I meant with hints – I surely didn’t really look into the codex ever since. I ended up upgrading my gaming machine mid-2012, so I was probably running on a few years’ old hardware at this point in time, so not SWTOR’s fault really.
 

Dec 27 2011 7:16 pm – One week later

No entry for nearly one week, this means either not much progress or not much to say.
Actually, there was bit of ingame time, I’m at Level 20 with most of Taris done, only need to wrap up a few quests and Datacrons.
The game is still tremendously fun, but still missing the “need to level, level, level” urge. Didn’t help that were was quite some offline time over the holidays. Most people are high in their 40s, I’m just lagging behind, but with the sort of limited play time there’s not much use searching for a level partner anyway.
Updated impressions:
Yay:

  • Warzones are fun. I’m dying quickly but I can heal a lot if I’m not focusfired. Absolutely love playing with people of all levels.
  • Questing is still nice and doesn’t feel slow.
  • Healing Flashpoints is fun, but the Sage really feels like a Disc Priest.

Nay:

  • The UI fails at some minor details, especially when buying Mods and comparing to your equipped ones is quite hard.
  • Some people are incapable of not breaking sheeps. Even if the sheep is actually an elite hanging helplessly in the air thanks to Force Lift.
  • Even more people are incapable of focus-firing a single mob.

See you soon on Nar Shaddaa

I can’t remember when I last did a warzone on my Sage, but it isn’t fun on my BH at 70. Back then no one had gear though. And we were all noobs. I should really heal a flashpoint again at some time though.
 

Dec 28 2011 8:11 pm – Halfway?

So I hit 25 earlier, my /played was 1d 19h at 23, should be around 2d now, I logged out before checking, meh.
I saved up enough to get my Speeder (and one bag upgrade for 5k earlier) and now have around 10k left.
My Archaeology is doing quite good at nearly 150, Synthweaving and Underworld Trading have to be pushed beyond 70 now.

That lack of speed! No perks to boost class mission XP, no usable XP boosts. 48 hours for 25 Levels – but on a PvP server, in a completely new game. I think I enjoyed it properly. Seems it was even a little quicker to level than WoW at launch 😛 The amount of credits is also kinda ridiculous, I think you make a few thousand on your starter planet nowadays, but I might be wrong here.
 
I think I sound pretty amazed overall, and I really loved that game at launch, so not surprised. So that was part one of the journey, stay tuned for part 2.

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SWTOR PvP and me = meh

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I’m not saying I’m good at PvP in any game right now, but I’m especially bad at SWTOR PvP. This week’s Conquest was an annoying one where I couldn’t just rampage and daily my way through it, so PvP it was. In contrast to WoW where I seem to at least grasp the mechanics enough to see why I suck… in SWTOR I just get stunlocked and then killed with blows of 5k to upwards of 20k, whereas my attacks usually do less than 5k. Sure, many people in PvP have 248 gear, and I’m at 234ish, but I don’t think that’s it.
Let’s hope the Gree Conquest next week is easier to solo…

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Mixed bits of progress

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My short one-week vacation is coming to an end, back to work tomorrow. Didn’t do much but play SWTOR yesterday and today while recovering from sightseeing and catching a light cold on my trip.
First I tried to speed-run a 2h Command XP buff, because I really, really, really want to get to Command Level 300 on my Bounty Hunter. I managed to do the dailies (with a weekly each) for Ziost, Black Hole, CZ-198, Yavin 4, Corellia Heroics, and nearly managed to do Voss (would’ve needed like 3mins more, grrr). I had a few Bonus XP packs to open, but still – from CL 211 to CL 236 isn’t bad in 2h – so that means I need to that twice more and then maybe once without a buff and I should be set. With 2 people it probably would have worked to get Voss done as well. Maybe there are even faster things to do, but I’m too lazy to research, it’s not so bad if I have to spend 2h more on this.
Next up was my last missing (base class) character who’s not 70 yet, my Sith Assassin. So I did Makeb and started on the Shadow of Revan pre-quests. I’m kinda getting sick of the “Assault on Tython” and “Korriban Incursion” flashpoints, especially as they’re followed *very* soon by “Depths of Manaan”, “Legacy of the Rakata”, “Blood Hunt”, and “Battle of Rishi” – and I’ve done them quite a few times now. Ugh. I’m at 57 now after these first two and need to regain some rested XP first.
To relax a bit I continued the story line on my baby Sith Marauder and finished Balmorra at Level 23. Next stop: Nar Shaddaa, but again waiting for some rested XP.
Before the dailies reset this morning I quickly finished Ziost and CZ-198 on my Commando, then the afternoon was mostly spent with my Sith Juggernaut, who is kinda different than most of the others. I leveled him as a duo and we didn’t rush the planets, but did most of the story lines – so he was Level 70, but hadn’t even seen Ilum yet. Now I caught up a bit, but doing the Tython/Korriban FPs twice a day is really not my cup of tea. At least I found my fun again playing him – mobs just kinda fall down if I manage to position them right for AoE. I can’t even decide which class/spec I like more right now. Powertech BH, Telekinetics Sage, or Vengeance Juggernaut.
Finally I progressed a little in KotFE on my Jedi Sage, at Chapter IX now, in the progress made a few levels. But I’m mostly interested in getting my companions back and being able to do some Archaeology, I have this character at 551 Synthweaving and my Juggernaut at 550 Artifice and would really love to get both to 600 soon…
So yeah, many small steps and a few bigger ones, but my play time will be going down a bit now.
Some quick short- and midterm gaming goals:

  • Levels: Get an 8th Level 70 character
  • Command Levels: Get Bounty Hunter to 300, then grab the permanent 25% boost and work on the next toon
  • Professions: Synthweaving and Artificer from 550 to 600
  • Achievements:
    • Get to Social IV on Juggernaut
    • Get to Valor 30 on BH
    • Finally do the last missing Heroic Missions: Balmorra on both sides
    • Grab some missing Datacrons
    • Start (and finish? :P) the HK-51 quest line
    • Finish the last “Kill 1000 mobs with this companion” achievements:
      • Agent: 3/5 done
      • Consular: 3/5 done (because of the meta at launch I *only* played with Qyzen)
      • Knight: 3/5 done
      • Inquisitor: 1/5 done (damn stealth playstyle :P)
      • Smuggler: 3/5 done
      • Trooper: 4/5 done
      • Fortresses: 2/6 done

PS: Blaugust has started and this is my twenty-ninth post. Only two more to go!

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What Class Do You Refuse To Play?

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Ocean Mariee asked an interesting question, Endalia chimed in and this topic got me thinking.
In Ragnarok Online I started with a Hunter, I liked it, but my preferred character was a Rogue. I also liked the other Melee DPS and didn’t really enjoy the casters.
When I started WoW I first rolled a Warlock, but after a few hours went for a Rogue again – who turned out to be my main from 2006 until 2014 and I didn’t really abandon him, I just tried another faction in Legion at first (Demon Hunter). My “main alts” were a Protection/DPS Warrior and a Resto/DPS Shaman. So I raided 90% as a Melee DPS (over the years) but I did heal a few progression fights and tanked in our non-main raids for years. So there’s not much I refused to play – but I absolutely did not enjoy the Monk – and I don’t know why. It’s my least favourite WoW class by a large margin, followed by DK and then Holy Priest and Fire Mage I guess. I liked Frost Mages and Disc Priests.
In GW2 I didn’t really enjoy the Elementalist when I tried it (for a very short time) and I haven’t really warmed up to the Revenant. The Mesmer is ok, but also not my favourite.
Now in SWTOR I equally like my Bounty Hunter, Commando, Sage and Juggernaut – but I only healed back at launch when I was briefly raiding, everything else is DPS – but I did notice I like ranged DPS a lot more in this game than in WoW. Of course sometimes it’s just magnitudes easier to not stand in the bad etc.pp (Melee DPS raider speaking, feel free to ignore me ;))
So is there a role I refuse to play? I used to tank and heal *a lot* but at some point I guess I decided to not be in the mood for random people in dungeons to be cursing just because I pull too slow or can’t heal them when they pull a whole room – I’ve never been one for the gear grind, so my toons in dungeons are usually a little undergeared, as I’m only doing them for gear and not for some “NEED TO FARM BADGES FOR 0.5% IMPROVEMENT IN MY TRINKET SLOT”. Yeah, so the last few years I was one of the people just doing moderate DPS – always trying not to be the worst, but usually not carrying the group, sorry other players.
If I get back into WoW I’ll really try to have at least one tank or healer geared as well and not do only DPS. IIRC I actually did tank on my Demon Hunter, just not the harder Mythics – I stopped too early in the expansion for that. I’m not doing any random dungeons in SWTOR right now anyway.
Did I forget any MMOs? I guess not. So I definitely refuse to change my main just because the group needs it, the benefit of mostly soloing or duoing these days. I guess it depends a lot on the game, in WoW I prefer Melee DPS over casters, in SWTOR I prefer casters over Melee or close-range DPS. In GW2 Melee DPS is fine, but for some fights ranged is like literally half as challenging. *cough* Tequatl *cough*
Oh, and I managed to get 70 on my Operative by finishing Yavin 4, Ziost, doing the Ziost and CZ-198 dailies. Good riddance, you’re now rewarded of being my GTN mule for Weapons to sell, I don’t plan on playing you for a while.

Level 70 Imperial Agent

 
Stay sharp, Evil Elvis
Stay sharp, Evil Elvis

PS: Blaugust has started and this is my twenty-second post.

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Never thought I’d do that

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“Just booked a short holiday and the first thought was: argh, have to schedule 4 posts!” as I wrote on Discord last night – so while I (for the first time in my 18+ years of sporadic blogging) made a real effort to prepare posts during an absence from my computer… I didn’t prepare something for today.
Also kinda sucks if it’s your last day at work before a short 1 week holiday and you got so much to do you don’t get to play much. Or maybe because you pre-wrote 3 blog posts… I guess I even at one point posted Blaugust is a bad time for continuous blogging for me because I tend to leave the country for at least a week every year. Only a few days this time though, and it only came together early this week, no planning months before.
I’m playing my Operative (Imperial Agent) right now, trying to get him to 70 asap. I needed to finish Yavin 4 (having finished Rishi yesterday) but – and I might be wrong – you can only do certain Weekly quests once per account, at least I couldn’t do Yavin twice when I tried, a few weeks ago. So I first had to do this on my Bounty Hunter (need to use up those Command Level XP boosts, and really, really want to reach CL 300 this month). Also did Black Hole on her, as it counts towards the weekly Conquest and then threw in a quick 15mins of Ziost. Didn’t I just say I had no time to play? Well it’s past 1 am already. So my Operative s 68 now and ready to start either Oricon, Ziost, or KotFE – I guess I’ll do Ziost to unlock the dailies first (as usual) and I think I never did Oricon – but I’ll hopefully be Level 70 by the time I finish Ziost (for the 5th? time?) and then I’ll probably switch to another character again – I don’t really enjoy this class, although the class story from 1-50 was kinda neat.
I also started a Sith Marauder in the last few days, finished Dromund Kaas and sitting at Level 20. Part of my ongoing project to a) have one of every advanced class at 50 or more and b) experience the same story line with a character of the other gender. So far I had done a female Jedi Shadow (after a male Sage) and now a female Marauder (after a male Juggernaut). Still a lot to do.
PS: Blaugust has started and this is my twenty-second post. And I have no shame to backdate it 2h – this counts for yesterday because I’m still awake.

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The Gearing Conundrum

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SWTOR’s double XP event ran out this noon and of course I’m kinda sad but on the other hand I’m also kinda glad that I can finally do something other than chain-run Daily Zones with Weeklies because I might miss out on that sweet, sweet XP 😛
I think I made really good progress on a handful of characters.
But as focused as I was these two weeks now I’m thinking about gear again. There’s some vendor-bought Tier 2/3/4 gear that looks really nice stat-wise (I think it’s some of the highest-level available, but as  I don’t do Operations I don’t really bother looking that up in detail). The problem is that you need 2 currencies to buy it – Command Tokens (of those I have 2500 (3000 cap) now) and Unassembled Parts. To buy a Tier 4 Weapon you need (if I didn’t miscalculate) 450 + 675 + 810, but I only have just over 1600 after all these opened Command Chests. Maybe a Tier 3 one would suffice, but I kinda wanted a max item level Lightsaber. We’ll see, I guess I’m still saving up a bit further. Of my 6 max-level Characters 3 are now at Item Rating 230 (to be 100% accurate, it’s 230, 230, and 228, so 1 item missing) and one is at 237 (thanks to the Tier 3 Chests). The last one is at 196, because I didn’t even bother to give her full Outlander green/blue gear at 210/220.
As usual I’m unsure what to do, besides trying to get to 300 Command Level on my main now (focusing, because there’s a buff waiting that will speed up the others by 25% – also being more diligent at doing Ziost every week on every character, it’s just too quick XP to pass if you want to progress).
I also just started Rishi on my Imperial Agent, he’s already 62 now. Got those 8 max-level character achievements in sight, but not sure yet how much time I’ll have the next days. 🙂
PS: Blaugust has started and this is my nineteenth post.

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The power of 2

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I’m a bit shocked to be honest, just used a +100% 2h Command XP boost, server-wide it’s also still +100%, so I’m running at triple XP and we did the Republic dailies + weeklies as a duo. Despite some stuttering that cost us like 5 mins we managed to do Ziost, Black Hole, Section X, CZ-198, and Yavin 4 in 1h 40m. That’s 40 Command Levels in 100 minutes. That’s why my Scoundrel is CL 60 now, but sadly still feels a little week. The only max-level character where I think I really need to tune my spec. Also I should really get one companion to 50, that should help as well.
PS: Blaugust has started and this is my eighteenth post.

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Yay, Tier 3

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As we had a public holiday today I had some time to play (unlike yesterday) and I reached one of my latest goals – my Bounty Hunter is now Command Level 192, whereas 181 was the important step, since that level I’m getting Tier 3 Command Crates with 240/242 Item Rating gear. Double XP combined with XP boosts and Daily Zones that include weekly quests is really fun and quick. My Sage is 56, my Commando 39, and my Sith Warrior 26 with just one flashpoint. Only downside is that I’m absolutely overflowing with items.
 
PS: Blaugust has started and this is my fifteenth post.

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What happened?

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Oh boy, double XP is bad for me, where did my weekend go? I played every free minute I was at home and the results are as nice as they are shocking.

  • Bounty Hunter to Command Level 159 (+17 over the weekend, +62 since the patch)
  • Sith Juggernaut to Command Level 24 (+19)
  • Jedi Sage to Command Level 41 (+18)
  • Commando to Command Level 34 (+29?)
  • Scoundrel to Command Level 18 (+6?)

See, I don’t even know exactly where I started, but I finished 2 Conquests this week, did Ziost, Black Hole, and Section X like 4 times, did some PvP and a ton of dailies for the Rampage Part III rewards of the Conquests. Man, does Section X suck on Republic side compared to Empire…
Why did I do this on so many characters? Mostly, gear. All of the “fresh” 70s now have a ton of 230 pieces from the first 20+ Command Chests and I’m pretty happy with the outcome. The Weekly quests reset on Tuesday and Wednesday is a public holiday here, and the Double XP event is supposed to go until the weekend – so I’ll have to make plans how many turbo sessions I can squeeze in after the reset, I really want to reach Tier 3 on the Bounty Hunter, which starts at Level 181.
My banks are overflowing in green gear and other stuff, also tons of orange items from the chests, I think I had nearly 100 items on the Auction House on the weekend.
I made a super cool change to my transmog and here is…

Pink Ranger
Pink Ranger

PS: Blaugust has started and this is my twelfth post.

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Spending time and money

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I really like the housing in SW:TOR – and that’s why I was kinda excited we’d get a new Stronghold, and on Rishi, my favorite piratey planet!
So today I put down the 3m Credits and bought one (you get the first expansion, The Overlook, for just 120k until the next patch, so grab it!). I was a little let down by the entrance layout, something I had missed when watching a test server video. Not sure how much I’ll use this for everyday, probably not so much 🙁 The “housing” part is just too far from the entrance, which sucks. But I also put down some money to expand my third Stronghold, Nar Shaddaa (this one *is* awesome) and I’m now at 75% bonus for Conquests.
This 100% EXP boost is pretty nice though, it catapulted me from Command Level 11x to 142 in just 2-3h, and I have half of a Conquest done already for this week with just 2x Tatooine dailies. Maybe I’ll try to do one more 2h session this week, but I’ll definitely do one after the next reset, where I hope to get another 20 command levels in 3h. I’m really not a fan of gear grinding at max level, and this Command Level thing is basically that. Better gear, and an arbitrary metric of an endgame Level, meh.
PS: Blaugust has started and this is my tenth post.

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