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 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 11:48am 

Do the Sith know I can understand Agents maybe doing their jobs and not knowing any better. But exactly how can Bounty Hunters be in on that? Or even other Sith whose general goal is to kill their way to the top? Please tell me the PCs on the Imperial side are doing something to stop this or just don't know about it. Personally, I'd be cool with playing an Imperial if I was involved in cleaning up the insanity in the system and making it a viable government.

I don't really care about people's faction choices, but this shit's pretty ridiculous storyline-wise. For a non-WoW example, I can see someone justify playing on the Klingnon Empire side, because they aren't evil. But the Imperial side of things is pretty much Chaotic Stupid as opposed to "Staggering Incompetence" on the Republic side. Note: I'm talking about the people who get personally involved in the Lore, not people who just want to throw force lightning or play Bobba_Fett1234.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 01:53pm 

I've not played Bounty Hunter yet so here's the other Imperials.

Imperial Agent


Sith Warrior


Sith Inquisitor

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 02:54pm 

So basically, the Jedi Knight is just cleaning up everyone else's mess. It figures the Knight would just get the KOTOR 1 storyline. Not really complaining though. Fighting Sith Lords while magic lasers from space try to vaporize me is quite fun.

I found the conversation between our Consular and I pretty funny last night while questing on Belsavis (also, Republic believes in generational prison sentences. W.T.F.)

Seeing things from 3 different class perspectives at the same time (Trooper, Knight, Consular) does let me see how everyone is doing their part to achieve the end-game for their faction. But it's hard to give a shit about other quest-lines when nothing else would even matter if the Jedi Knight fails. Haha, "big picture....."

On another note: Belsavis is such a terrible planet. Poor storyline really highlighting the epitome of Republic and Imperial incompetence. Very predictable story quest (go from Min, heavy, to max security). Then it's like fucking huge glaciers and ancient ruins to the north (it's snowing literally within like 50 feet of some kind of weird Tropical/Temperate hybrid climate) which come out of fucking nowhere and are insanely annoying to navigate and find anything. The only fun I had on the planet was catching some Sith out of stealth and force pushing him off a cliff.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 03:30pm 

The Inquisitor's storyline is 100% Sith navel-gazing from start to finish. Which...explains why the Republic ends up wiping out the empire, I suppose, the Sith are too busy sharpening knives for each other's backs. In answer to the question about the Emperor, though, nobody knows where the fuck he is or what he's up to. That's a large portion of why there's so much infighting, actually. The Emperor built the Empire based on the principles of Sith leadership and personal dominance. Then he fucked off, and the Sith are trying to construct ladders out of the hilts of daggers sticking out of each others' backs in an attempt to climb to the top.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 04:32pm 

Every single Republic storyline I run across is either the Republic is massively outgunned by the empire/pirates/criminals/whatever (yawn) or is in trouble due to mass incompetence. "We're Republic Soldiers, we're not trained to handle this kind of violence!" Seriously, if the Imperials could quit backstabbing everyone for 5 minutes, they could conquer everything. There's one class quest for the Trooper where they straight up backstab 6-7 world leaders that were on the fence about joining either side, thus letting the Republic gain access to all their money/power. In another quest, they sell out this pirate who won them numerous victories under the assumption that he would get his own Imperial Fleet as payment. And it's not like he didn't earn it by being an extremely competent and ruthless commander. But no, they betray him for EVIL!

You might be able to play this off as the Emperor keeping both sides about equal to buy more time for his end-goal, but I can't give anyone in this universe the benefit of the doubt. And since all the quest data is presented in cinematic format, I can speed read it easily and see the stupidity, unlike WoW and STO where it's given in paragraph format with my shiny XP and loots right near the ACCEPT button for easy ignoring.

As for the emperor:

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 04:59pm 

I'm still on my first character (Jedi Knight) and I just finished the second chapter of the story so I'm not by any means done my first class story. But from what I've played, the class quests and the world-arc quests are great! The side quests are a bit meh tho. You can tell they recycle the same lines for the generic responses. Still a lot of fun though. I fought a group of four Imperials last night around 15 levels below me. It made me feel like I was an instanced boss.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-03 06:29pm 

The bounty hunter is a large hunt across worlds against fellow hunters.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-04 01:40pm 

I did love the way you corrupt Jaesa Willsaam. That was true Sith evil right there. On the other hand that's when Baras starts to fear you. I love the dynamic between Jaesa and Kira. Jaesa was a jedi who fell due to the weakness of the jedi Kira defected from the Sith and achieved Redemption because she saw the rot beneath the glamour. Also, the Emperor is voiced by Pinhead (doug bradley).

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-04 02:09pm 

I have a love/hate relationship with Voss. On one hand, it's a bitch to get ganked at the commendation vendor by 3 Imps. On the other hand, it was fun hunting them down. I almost felt bad when we wrecked that Sentinel in the Cantina. That Jug was smart enough to head the other direction as soon as he saw us.

The idea of all the class questing hubs culminating at the Temple is kind of cool. But I would go nowhere near that planet without my buddies due to the 3 to 1 odds favoring the Imps. We did have a huge battle-royal outside near the neutral medical droid. 4 ungrouped Imps with companions VS all 4 BiPolar Bears. Man, abusing the shit out of the taunt system is awesome. We all ended up dying once, besides Rob who vanished when he got low, but we must have killed that Sorcerer 4 times and the other guys at least twice before they stopped rushing back into battle.

As for the PvE content, I've finally found another Neutral Stupid race. "If you see my wife, tell her, hello."

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-06 02:01pm 

Ok, I think I made a mistake here. I'm a level 12 Smuggler (Scoundrel) and my gf is a Level 11 Jedi Sentinel (I think sentinel, whichever one has 2 lightsabers) and we just can not beat the first flashpoint (Eselles). Do we just suck or did I pick a crap class specialization?

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-06 03:28pm 

you need three for that flashpoint

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-06 03:37pm 

Actually, it's doable with two, but you need a healer that's seriously on the ball when it comes to fighting Ironfist. He is arguably the toughest boss in that entire flashpoint unless you count the power droid.

It's not that your classes suck, it's just that you have no tank. The Sentinel is good for dealing damage, but it just can't take a hit. I would suggest buying a few stims/med packs, or picking up a third to make it go a bit smoother.

Or using your companions. They don't actually add more bad guys to a flashpoint and will improve your survival rate immensely

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-06 03:58pm 

I did it the other night with a sentinal, Commando, and a tank healer who couldn't do healing....

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-06 11:43pm 

Scoundrel heals, but since you're one lvl into it, not that great. Yeah, one more toon should do it.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-07 03:53am 

heh I don't know how I did it I'm playing by the Spagetti Western samurai code (in it just for the credits but no killing innocents) and now my hunter is lightside attuned

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-08 02:19am 

Wife bought the game for me, and I'm enjoying it - playing a smuggler on the Republic side. Only at Level 12 right now.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-09 10:57am 

I kind of peetered out with my gunslinger. DPS just isn't the god like killing power in this mmo like others, at least in my experience. I am having a hoot with my trooper though, a bit of tanking, a bit of healing, and adequate dps to level. I decided to go healer with him, though I feel odd doing that with a trooper, just doesn't seem right, but so far it works well and there is always need for a healer. I like healing as much as tanking so it works for me and the gear on a trooper always looks cool.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-09 03:32pm 

The gearing up process is pretty confusing and annoying at endgame. Bosses only drop tokens, no actual gear, which slows the process down considerably. Personally, I don't see how people have already locked out raiding gear unless they came from another game with a raiding guild and just picked class/specs that brought top DPS. That and they don't sleep... ever.

And you will need that top DPS because Bioware's hardmodes are uninspired. Almost all of the fights just added a timed enrage, so if your DPS can't deal out enough punishment, there are bosses you can't beat. Also, since our server gets laggy at times, certain boss fights are almost undoable, much like early cataclysm with split-second timing being needed to avoid certain high-damage boss abilities. I'd farm the first few bosses of X flashpoint, like we had planned, but you also need commendations to get gear, so that's not possible. And to craft gear to actually get us through hardmodes, you need materials that only drop off hardmode endbosses......

I understand hardmodes are supposed to be, you know, hard: but the difficulty ramp is massive. In fact, the only fight we had any trouble with on our way to 50 was HK-47 and how buggy his almost insta-gib DoT was at <50% HP. In fact, most of the hard fights are only hard because Bioware can't QA for shit.

In hardmodes, everyone has to bring something above their A-game and be fairly geared. This wouldn't be much of a problem except Bioware hates tanks (I can only get Elusive Mods by buying Corellia commendation gear and pulling the mods out one at a time. All the commendation mods are DPS: fuck you to Bioware). And without any kind of armory or combat log, I can't even begin to tell our DPS where they are lacking, and they are.

Supposedly, many ops are demanding certain class/specs with certain gear and anyone who didn't have the good grace to pick that combination is stuck doing dailies on Illum till Bioware gets on the ball.

Basically, the endgame reminds me of WoW, except worse because bosses don't actually drop gear, so there's no way to farm up gear to make them bearable. Illum is Tol Barad/Molten Front except somehow actually more annoying.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-09 07:05pm 

Speaking of being 50, here's what you can do at 50

Farm Dailies on Illium. There's four soloable plus one Heroic which can be done with two people and some crowd control. Each daily nets you 1 Dailies commendation and about 10k (The Heroic nets you 3)
Farm Dailies on Belsavis, there are three soloes and two heroics both of which require at least two good plays or four so-so players.

If you do everything you can get 102k in credits plus whatever drops and 17 commendations adding per day. So five days of work lets you set up any of your alts for life because 500k lets you buy everything you'd need to buy and letting them earn the 550k for speeder training over the life of their characters. Meanwhile your 50 can be used to PVP or Farm or Raid... or craft except the crafting stuff requires raiding which is just Farming in groups atm since the current instances are a little lackluster in story and content except I hear False Emperor.

So as for me I'm going to be working on my Juggernaut and my Sniper while I spend an hour or so per day making 100k to give to them so I can get them in Orange gear as soon as possible with purple level armaments.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-09 07:31pm 

Personally speaking, my game ends when there isn't any more story. I'll likely just roll a different class when I hit that mark with my first one.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-09 07:36pm 

Convinced the fiance to give SWTOR a try. We're lvl 11, she's a Sorcerer and I'm a Juggernaut.

Last night we 2-manned the first Flashpoint (Black Talon?), and that was more fun than anything I have ever done in WoW. I don't know if it's the better engine, the music, the voice acting, the scripted events, or that it's just freaking Star Wars, but I'm having a ton of fun.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-10 05:20am 

Anyone notice how the Jedi Knight and Warrior and Inquisitor and Consulars are essentially mirror images of one another.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-10 05:26am 

...Congratulations, you've somehow stumbled on one of the core design principles of the game. The next thing you know, you'll be telling me that the smuggler and Imperial Agent are near-perfect mirrors despite having different weapon types!

In other news, TOR is a game in which abilities are activated, usually with a predefined target, that then trigger an animation and a numerical combat effect.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-10 05:33am 

Bullshit, the Imperial Agent gets to call in orbital bombardment and the smuggler only gets a freighter strafing run, totally different.

Uh yeah. It makes sure that both sides are on roughly even footing, at least as far as class balance is concerned.

On another note, now that I've started leveling my Legacy I'm curious as to what exactly they intend to do with it.

 Post subject: Re: Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

Posted: 2012-01-10 12:37pm 

Considering the commendations can only be spent on implants and earpieces (120 each) or more DPS mods, this doesn't solve my problem. Also, the idea of grinding dailies again makes me want to kill myself. This still isn't a solution as I'm stuck at my current gear level until I can beat heroics. Endgame is poorly implemented and buggy, which is what I expected to be honest. This is Bioware after-all. We've shelved our mains and are running alts now.

I don't know how many Consulars can continually spam "Force Lightning" (a high DPS ability with a built in stun and, I believe, snare) and get kills. Don't get me wrong, these "press 1 to win" idiots are easy to kill (I do it all the time in PvE gear), but I have to use a whole load of abilities to lock them up and burn them down. Get 3 Sorcerers together, have them put FL in slot one, and just let them right-click their way to kills. It really is an idiot class.

As over-powered as Agents and Scoundrels are right now, they at least have to use 4 abilities to rack up the kills.