SWTOR (Circa 2018)

[TheFeniX]

Anyone still messing around with this? Kyle wanted, in his words, "lightsaber action" (queue "glowstick" comment here) so he reinstalled and bought a one-time sub, then sent me a 7 day sub. I've got access to quickslots, so there's that. Nothing really seems to have changed that much. Got another Guardian off Tython, then realized how stupid that was and deleted her and just kept my original Guardian.

Still hella-geared, but somewhere along the line my Rakata headpiece got lost in the shuffle. Had to go back to my Columi piece, so I'm missing that old BiS head-piece and the Chest I never could get to drop. That and I ended up with a whole bunch of companion gear in my mail-box combined with a lot of naked companions. Since the stats no longer apply, not a big deal. But I do miss Lord Scourge being better geared than most players. But now I can just run Kira as you can spec them on the fly.

Fleet's about the same, with the exception of RPers talking all in /emote. Dear fucking God. The high-res texture pack is.... look, you can't wrap these types of textures around low-poly models without getting that "puffy-face" shit like you got in Oblivion or Half-Life 2 hi-res. It looks bad, though not as bad as it did originally.

People still seem to be running the hell out of KP and EV. I wonder how geared I am compared to the average scrub.

Well, with all the legacy shit and me being dragged along, I suppose it's time to max out my Vanguard and Shadow. Before-hand, Tan wants in as I think the only other MMOs he's played are FFXI and FFXIV. I can level a Smuggler with him. So, I rolled a female "Green Human" alien whatever, and within 5 seconds of the opening cutscenes, she made a disgusted face and her eyes clipped through her cheeks. You know, because this is a BW outfit. And man I forgot just how. fucking. dumb. the male body is in this game. The designer had no idea what human anatomy looks like. The women aren't much better, but at least they all have bubble-butts and huge tracks of land, so you can at least just focus on that.

Figured I'd hold off on any post-level 50 content for a while. The Cartel Shop is stupidly expensive and loot boxed out the ass. Didn't expect anything better. Lost all my names, and these mega servers mean a whole lot of them are already taken. Ugh.

Still, I always did enjoy the leveling in this game. And with 3 people, I don't think there's much we can't handle.

[TheFeniX]

Guess not. I find it hilarious that a Generic Sci-Fi MMO with a Star Trek skin has better longevity than this crap-pile. That's not a jab against STO.

Anyways, as said the questing is still quite fun. They did a good job of cleaning up the classes and the abilities. AOE threat and damage is no longer an issue. The problem is that mobs have either been nerfed heavily or damage buffed considerably. I hope this levels off, but I don't know if it does. In the past, killing mobs on Ilum at max level was annoying on my Guardian. Now, they go down a little fast for my taste considering I'm Tank specced. Up to about level 20, any DPS class is like "put down AOE, kill everything, move up, GOTO 10." There's almost no reason for other abilities at this time.

The dungeon story modes are now soloable. They give you a combat droid and boss fights have healing stations. There is no difficulty at all, which is kind of a bore. Technical issues likely lead to it, but you can still only have one companion out. They really should have implemented a KOTOR style party for those who don't want to group.

The original space missions, while previously a good way to farm some credits and XP, have been buffed to absurd levels. I assume this is to get people into Galatic Starfighter. Ugh, so basically if you want credits: do dailies/weekly heroics. And man have they added some credit sinks in this. And most of them seem tied to the inflated economy due to the way the cartel shop works. I can only imagine how much money they are making off some of these whales. That and gold spammers are selling 20 mil credits for $2-4 depending. That's telling right there.

[TheFeniX]

It's nice that 5 some-odd years later, I actually get to play the game rather than just raid or die every week. I've taken the time to finish out some of the other classes, with mixed results. I have yet to jump into the expansions. Though I did finally finish the Ilum story proper and got the Hutt Cartel quest legit.

The Jedi Consular story wasn't all that much to write home about. A lot of this for me was because I wanted to run a Dark Side character and the amount of "Evil for teh lulz" shit grates. You've got the power to help people who are driven insane by the Dark Side and you just decide not to. Not because using your power weakens you. Not because you don't think they are worth being saved since they are weak. No, it's near always because "The crimes you have committed are terrible, even though they were done because you've been driven insane by Dark Magic."

It comes off as poor writing because, as I'm about to lead into, the Sith Warrior just does it better.

Sith Warrior. Went light-side because this is a near perfect example of "Aberant Evil." The honorable evil. You're doing bad things no matter what, but you're doing them for mostly decent reasons. You're still a Sith, but you understand the Order is Stupid Evil and must change to survive. And some of the choices make me think rather than just click the Light Side option because I'm light side.

One I liked was after working with a Jedi. He asks "How do we leave each other, Sith?"
1: Friends (LS)
2. Enemies (LS)
3. Nothing (DS: Kill Him).

And I'm just like "fuck yes, THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT."

The story itself is much less "epic" than the Jedi Knight story, but it's presented really well with options scattered about that make me give a shit about what button I'm pressing. And I'm a bit pissed that after my boytoy tried to murder me at the behest of my worst enemy, I break up with him. Then the game ignores that and our next conversation has him kiss my character passionately. Maybe DON'T have the female romance option try to murder me if you can't code it right.

The Trooper story is Havoc Havocing Havok and being Havoc awesome while Havocing. Not bad, but they really could have ditched the LS/DS crap and went with a Paragon/Renegade approach.

The game is just way too easy now though. Many fights originally were way overtuned, now you can blast through Elites and even some Champions like they aren't even there. Kind of sad really, fights than once felt epic and pushed you are now just a faceroll.

Sidenote: female romance options in this game are awful. Maybe because I don't have a vagina, but most of these dudes are insufferable. Either total poon-hounds that ditch all that characterization the moment you show up or "rod up the ass" tightwads with little charisma. The Sith Warrior can booty call Pierce, which makes total sense, but you can't actually romance him outside that. I'm not even talking marriage, the guy looks set for rando booty calls.

Kaiden from Mass Effect was a dude I totally didn't mind romancing, but every male option in SWTOR is a total shit-heel. On the flip side, Elara, Kira, Mako, even Vette (barely) at least have some interesting backstory shit and don't IMMEDIATELY fawn all over you.

Second Sidenote: Rachael Leigh Cook as Jeasa Williams. Holy shit. Words cannot express how atrocious her voice acting is. Combination quiet monotone with "I'm too stoned for this shit." By far she stands out in an otherwise excellent group of female voice work.

[Steve]

Maybe they had her spend all her effort on the Dark Side Jaesa lines?

[TheFeniX]

Even if I were to excuse that, and it is possible, there's enough alignment neutral dialog with this "read at gunpoint" effect. In fact, while there are light side/dark side choices in the companion dialog, most players (especially those playing male PCs) are going to go with the "daw, you're awesome" choices in order to max affection.

The most animated she gets is when she's hammering you about her parents, and it's still extremely muted and she goes back to "high school kid being forced to read shakespeare in front of the whole class" within the same conversation. She ends the entire culmination of her character, coming into her own as a Sith, with the same utter lack of emotion. When compared to even much of the blow-off dialog of heavy-hitters like Kira/Bailey, Elara/Quirk, Risha/Strong, or Mako/Chabert: it's consistently grating.

Bailey herself nails every little bit of dialog, though I'm biased, and is really only held back by Bioware's hilariously bad animating.

Even among the male characters in this game, and I hate a whole lot of them for being poorly written D-bags, at the least they deliver their dialog with some form of conviction. And as shitty as some of the writing is in this game, most of the VA work is stellar.

Thankfully, someone beat me to it and made a video about it. While her voice is more soothing, this is how I felt every time I had to talk to Jaesa. NOTE: she's not this bad, but when you compare her to the rest of the cast, ho boy.

EDIT: as I said, most of the VA work is actually quite good, they spent enough money to make it good, so this kind of thing REALLY sticks out.

EDIT2: to this day, I have wanted "Have a taste of the Dark Side" as my ring-tone.

[GuppyShark]

And I'm a bit pissed that after my boytoy tried to murder me at the behest of my worst enemy, I break up with him. Then the game ignores that and our next conversation has him kiss my character passionately. Maybe DON'T have the female romance option try to murder me if you can't code it right.

So mad you can't just execute him for that. The Sith Warrior campaign otherwise is so good, but this guy that I genuinely liked made the wrong call and he can't suffer any consequence for it. From what I've read, you can literally be married to him before he tries to set you up....

[TheFeniX]

So mad you can't just execute him for that. The Sith Warrior campaign otherwise is so good, but this guy that I genuinely liked made the wrong call and he can't suffer any consequence for it. From what I've read, you can literally be married to him before he tries to set you up....

I wouldn't doubt it, I was only two conversations away from him asking me to marry him. I've put him off because I can't decide if I'm going to bother. I know it doesn't do jack all, but I figure it's about time to hit the expansions on my main. He will be staying true to Kira, but I can at least see if any of the (gender neutral) romance options are even worth it.

I just can't understand why Pierce was not a viable option for a Sith Warrior, even if he doesn't seem like the settling down type. Hell, BECAUSE he doesn't seem like the settling down type. I don't see The Wrath either LS or DS being the settling down and pumping out babies kind of woman either way. They even let you hit him up for a booty call, no strings. Plus, you know, he's actually fun to talk to.

Supposedly, and I cannot verify this as I was denied participating, early in the closed beta you could tell certain companions to fuck off. Players complained, blah blah blah. I mean, I get it, as it's an MMO. But you CAN break the mold here people. They just chose to pass on it though and it really grates (man, I'm using that word a lot) since the DS Inquisitor seems down to kill everyone who's outlived their usefulness, the dialog options for a companion become immediately apparent as "but thou must."

Anyways, finally bothering to hit 70 on my JK. You get an ESO type deal where you still get XP. Each level, I think it goes to 300, gives you a loot crate that can contain pretty much anything. I got some companion gifts, schematics for level 70 gear, a Tier Chest piece (seems to be Tier 1 out of 4), and a few Tier 1 implants and relics. You can break some things back down into XP. At the least this will give me an excuse to stop leveling alts without my buddy and just run his JK up to 70 and through the class story.

And it's also nice to see some options for gear advancement at endgame that isn't "Raid or die." While the grind seems real, it looks like the same little command commendations you get will trade in for the next tier piece if you get enough. I'm just so done with raiding.

The new expansions have difficulty levels. Supposedly "Veteran" is a bit tougher than vanilla was and "Master" is masochist tier. So, I'm down for Master difficulty. There's some fun in mauling down loads of mobs, but it gets quite boring. I assume a lot of this is done to get players to max, so they'll sub and buy the expansion because pretty much the entire game, some Heroics aside, is a total faceroll sub level 50.

Though a slight roadbump is going to be getting Kira's affinity up. Since I was max way back and had done near every quest up to Balmorra, she's only now Rank 17. And that's with dropping almost 200k on gifts. Since it goes to 50 and the Presence bonuses (affects all their damage/healing) is insane at high ranks, it's definitely worth doing. My Trooper was barely off Tat when I came back and with Elara at my side, just pushing Class Quests, she's at 26. Ugh.

EDIT: Oh, by the way, you can finally make the lightsabers look like lightsabers by turning on "bloom" in the graphics setting. This setting should also be called "OH GOD MY EYES" as any time a flashy effect goes off, the light coming out of your monitor is like a fucking flashbang. I mean, it looks cool, but still not worth the fried corneas.

[TheFeniX]

If you use a 60-65 boost, you are locked out of completing your Class Story from 1-50. You are locked into the Quest line for Fallen Empire (or whatever). This isn't a huge deal because I used it to make a Female Sith Guardian (as my main is a Male Human Guardian), but you will not get access to any of the titles and other jazz you might have picked up on the way. Supposedly, the planet quests and sidequests are still available. The other thing that sucks is Class Quests are/were a great way to grind affection with a companion. But that won't matter for reasons that are spoilers, so I'll leave it for the bottom of my post.

I can't get away from Guardian. Dirty Fighting might have been one class to do it, but it's way to comical what with the Batman Series style :psh: :crack: :thud: sound effects. Guardian just has all the everything I want in a class.

So, I guess the plan is to run through Rise of the Hutts, skip all the daily shit, possibly skip the operations, and just move the expansion quest lines on my Main, then come back to take my Sith through because what she's seeing makes no sense to me storywise.

SPOILERS: You lose all your original companions somewhere along the line. They begin to show back up throughout the FE storyline. And you get all kinds no matter your class. Vette, Jorgan, T7, etc. You will end up with them and go find more a la ME2. A massive complaint, and one I share from reading, is that Scourge and Kira have yet to make an appearance. Possibly the two most interesting and well rounded companions in the game with direct ties to the Emperor. I hope they have big plans for them, but you never know.

At the least, once you've completed Chapter 9 of the Expansion, there's supposedly a console you can use to force the companion back into your stable even though it doesn't make sense via the story.

[TheFeniX]

Fucking Mando trash. I want to start by saying, Mandalorians are the dumbest "threat" in Star Wars, and I haven't even read the shitty novels. The only one worth a shit was Canderous Ordo due to a combination of good writing and great voice acting. And even HE admitted the only reason they did the damage they did was because the Republic was a corrupt shitpile and the Jedi didn't take them seriously... or anything. When Revan got motivated, he took the Republic Military (which was in pretty bad shape at the time) and wrecked their shit. As for the movies, if whatever head-canon lead to the Fett's being Mando-Trash is true then allow me to laugh even harder. They get talked up and talk themselves up as these great warriors, but they get dick slapped easily by nearly any motivated and trained group.

SIDENOTE: I remember way back in some thread, a poster was commenting about how pregnant Kira whooped the shit out two Klingons and someone countered that, for honor, they were going easy on her. And the response was "so if she had fucked them both with a strap-on, they'd be the most honorable Klingons of all?" And that's all I can ever think of when it come to whooping Mando ass. Though, I guess since there's more than enough female Mandos to fight in SWTOR, I don't want to be sexist, but I'll power through it.

Now, Blood Hunt, specifically Joss and Valk. That "guide" actually ignores several mechanics that happen throughout that fight. Such as the fighting area being a ring over a pit of lava that you can fall off of. And, oh yea, the bosses have a knockback that can take you from the center all the way to the edge. And the koltos they add on Vet (like the bullshit "difficulty" mode) that heal the group... are on the edge.

The actual mechanics list of "this shit will wipe you" is longer than most operations bosses I've fought. We finally got them down on the 4th try. The last surviving DPS got dick-punched off the arena right as Joss went down and I had to solo Valk from 40%. I did this by powering through her damage (Defense Guardian for life) and lining myself up between her and a Kolto so when her 100000000 meter knockback him me, I could heal up and dive back in.

I'm not about to cry about hard fights, but there's a fucking limit on mechanics you should throw at 4-man content players. And even that's not bad, but the knockback is combined with other mechanics that require you to split up (thus moving away from mid), conals, and targeted AOEs, combined across 4 stages. I shit you not, Garrosh Hellscream wasn't as mechanically difficult.

Now, the last Boss, Torch, is a mechanically difficult, fun, and engaging fight. But she also buys into the Blood Knight bullshit. So, fun fight, but I also want to continue beating her stupid face in during the cutscene, even if she is a red-head.