Star Wars: The Old Republic (The Thread)

[Molyneux]

Aaah, Overseer Harken. There's a saber blade with your name on it, even if I have to take darkside points to accomplish the deed. As an aside, the blue saber blades really fuck with people. There's always that split-second 'Oh, that must be a friendly' twitch in PVP, right before they double-take and realize it's a Sith behind 'em. Secondary addendum: A lightsaber igniting is the new scariest sound to hear from someone dropping out of stealth behind you.

My Assassin tank is up to 43 now, just finished out Artifice and Treasure Hunting. Archaeology is lagging behind a bit due to the lack of gathering nodes; it's outpaced the planets I'm on. Once I start getting the relevant mats, it'll be time to start spamming craftable lightsabers in the hopes of a critical proc so I can get a saber with an augment slot. Future characters will be simpler, once people in the guild have their relevant professions. Start the game with a set of crit-crafted customizable armour and just keep plunking new mods into it as levels permit. Should go a long way towards keeping future characters strong for their levels.

Oh, and protip: Get a new barrel/hilt off the mod quartermaster of each planet as soon as you can. It'll keep your DPS output tip-top as you level. Don't be my friend, who claims that mods are a waste of time, then goes 'NEEEEEEED!' when a tanking blaster drops in a flashpoint because he refused to keep his own gear current. In general, enough quests give mods as optional rewards th at it's quite simple to keep your entire set of gear relevant even if you don't know any crafters/are not a crafter yourself. Obviously that breaks down at epic level, because they are only partially moddable, but ah well, such is life.

Okay...I'm officially interested now. Is there any kind of SDN guild in TOR yet?

[Highlord Laan]

Okay. Bought the game yesterday and I've already got a level 10 Sentinel. I am really liking this game, though I have to crank the graphics pretty mow so as to not lag too much in towns and sucn. The Jedi Temple on Tython got pretty choppy.

[Knife]

I turned off shadows and it works great at medium.

[Oculus_Mortis]

There is an issue with the games shadows, people with top notch rigs are having problems with them turned on, also afaik setting textures only effects the textures during chat cut scenes, otherwise the textures are always medium anyway.

[Highlord Laan]

There is an issue with the games shadows, people with top notch rigs are having problems with them turned on, also afaik setting textures only effects the textures during chat cut scenes, otherwise the textures are always medium anyway.

Ah, ok. After turning shadows off, I was able to crank the setting up a bit more. Thanks.

[TheFeniX]

Open world PvP is a blast. I was running to help out the rest of my group finish off some imperials on Alderaan, when a Sith Sorcerer decided to try and take me out. This turned out to be a huge mistake on his part when I had him down to 20% and I was barely about to break 60%. He started trying to kite me and buy time for his buddies to show up. When they did, he fucked up and tried to help them pour it on to finish me off. Force Push, Force Leap, BLADE STOOOOOORM!

The other 3 trained me down and an Agent started the /sit emote on my corpse. This also proved to be a massive mistake as our Sage and Shadow showed up shortly after my death (and while they were dancing around my corpse) and proceeded to skull-fuck them. Two went down before I even got respawned. The 3rd didn't last long after that. TOR has a /spit emote which is awesome and I use liberally.

We ended up fighting them a few more times at 4-3 odds (1 to 1 with my companion) and absolute wrecking them until they finally got the message and fucked off. With me guarding Kyle and abusing the taunt mechanic, he can heal till the cows come home.

After that, we'd just find 1-2 guys running around and I'd sit back to keep the odds even and look for stragglers. This worked out well as I spotted a 50 coming to crash our party. I manage to lead him off on my speeder while the rest of the group headed to friendly territory. Jackass.

[Molyneux]

Open world PvP

Stopped reading there.
I cannot for the life of my understand why anyone would play on a PVP server. The PVE missions I've been doing so far are pretty fun, though; finally got my Sith warrior a real lightsaber.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Some people like the added immersion or verisimilitude of being in constant conflict with the opposing faction, rather than being arbitrarily unable to fight them. Others like a constant "watch your back" sense of danger while exploring the world.

[White Haven]

I'm on a PVE server this time around and honestly it feels WEIRD to not be jumping/getting jumped/cautiously staring aech other down to determine if either one's going to jump the Republic players I see out and about. Not that I'd start fights, I generally don't, but having some sort of Magic Fair Play Field blocking them is...distinctly odd in the context of a galaxy at mostly-war. That's where the guild elected to go, though, so here I am.

[Highlord Laan]

Some people like the added immersion or verisimilitude of being in constant conflict with the opposing faction, rather than being arbitrarily unable to fight them. Others like a constant "watch your back" sense of danger while exploring the world.

The trade off on PvP servers is that with the admittedly fun verisimilitude and sense of danger comes putting up with juvenile fuckheads too scared of a challenge to fight their own level, ie: players twenty levels higher than everyone else camping whole zones. With the faction disparity the way it is, I don't see how any Republic players can get anything done on Troll servers.

It's why I both never play on PvP servers anymore, and why I'm always in favor of the "chicken rule" from Warhammer Online. Prove yourself to be a lowbie-killing pussy? Get instantly turned into a chicken with 1 hp, but still worth all the xp and rewards one of your level normally would be.

It break immersion, but it gets the point across.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Gotta run, so I'll just leave a quick note:

Whoever designed the Jedi Knight final mission (and maybe other classes' as well, I don't know) is a sick fucking sadist.

Take away all your companions mid-mission, then force you to use T7 (who, unless you have actual RL Jedi precognition and knew this was going to happen, is hideously undergeared and therefore useless), so you have no heals and a companion who can take about 2 hits before dying, then throw you up against encounters with 2-4 Strongs each.

lol

[White Haven]

I'm just amazed that the Sith Inquisitor storyline doesn't end with the instant execution of whatever companion you bring to the final throwdown. I can't imagine the Spoiler

Dark Council is too happy to have a non-member bear witness to their infighting and the death and succession of a full member of the Council.

My guild needs to hurry the fuck up, it's lonely at 50.

[TheFeniX]

Stopped reading there.
I cannot for the life of my understand why anyone would play on a PVP server.

I left it up to the group I ended up running with. At start, I reconnected with 4 gaming groups, some from years back. 2 went PvE and 2 went PvP. We allied with the PvP group and are on the same server.

While I never liked the idea of a PvP server (I preferred the way Galaxies handled it in the original release), there's something to be said about worrying about more than just computer mobs. That and we run a 4 man team (1 tank, 1 heals, 2 DPS) and when in an area with Imperials, we just split into 2 man teams so our companions can make it 8 man. Works quite well using Teamspeak to communicate. This also lets Stumblez and Fumblz ride again. Back in WoW, kyle and I had 2 rogues we would open-world PvP and BG with. No one stood a chance. Now we have 2 Shadows and it's going to be awesome.

And the actual battleground system is idiotic. Running into 50s in a load of expertise gear? But hey, they buffed my health, I should be able to compete, right?

On the PvE end, Maelstrom Prison pissed me off because I couldn't figure out who the Jedi Entity was for two reasons: Spoiler

1. I assumed Bioware had some originality.
2. I forgot the Jedi Exile from KOTOR 2 is canonically female.

Awesome instance though. Running a lightsaber through the last boss was awesome. Fucking hate that guy.

Gotta run, so I'll just leave a quick note:

Whoever designed the Jedi Knight final mission (and maybe other classes' as well, I don't know) is a sick fucking sadist.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll make sure to bring my buddies along because I'm not wasting money on upgrading T7.

[Mr Bean]

I'm just amazed that the Sith Inquisitor storyline doesn't end with the instant execution of whatever companion you bring to the final throwdown. I can't imagine the Spoiler

Dark Council is too happy to have a non-member bear witness to their infighting and the death and succession of a full member of the Council.

My guild needs to hurry the fuck up, it's lonely at 50.

Know the feeling hit 50 last night, only got one other person in the guild at 50.
Also fun fact despite being Light 5 I'm a proud member of the Dark Council, shame I never got a new title at 50 as a member of the Council. I hope that in a year or so there's an expansion for all the quests to take us to 55 or 60 that lets us grow into our 50's roll. I'd love to run around the galaxy being in charge of Sith equivalent of the Ancient Unspeakable Evil Research Division having to go punch out space Cthulhu.

Bouncing around Illium at the moment to check out the planet and rase a few hundred k to give to my Agent who I think I'll be working on next.

[Knife]

Lord, you guys. Bouncing between two toons right now. Guard and Gunslinger. Love my guard, but needed to try something else too, gunslinger is a hoot. I usually don't play pure dps on mmo's so it's weird for me. I like the story line and feel like I can flirt with this dude. Going Dirty Tricks with him though, rather do a nut kick and pistol whip than hide behind creates. Kind of reminds me of a burg in LOTRO. The Guardian is awesome. Love it. Love tanking. Just need some tanking tools now. Assist window or the 'target of my target' or threat meter or something.

What the hell is up with the Heroic Locust on Taris? Level 16 my ass. We were all 18+ and getting our asses handed to us my mobs of 6 elites.

[TheFeniX]

Hit 37, got Saber Throw, laugh in the face of knock-backs.

The Guardian is awesome. Love it. Love tanking. Just need some tanking tools now. Assist window or the 'target of my target' or threat meter or something.

Guardian tanking is dying for macros and being able to view target of target. Also, you will fucking hate multiple target tanking until about level 30. The level 50 friendly intercept I can see being almost useless right now. The council fight on Mandawhorian Radiers was impossible if it didn't bug out. You literally cannot hold threat on the mobs and they will train-wreck your healer. Once you get your AOE taunt, Cyclone slash, and a few other abilities, you get to run around like a madman kicking all kinds of ass while screaming "WAAAAAH Jedi!"

Seriously, it gets fucking awesome at around 30 and keeps getting better. My only issue is that I want another Center Quickslot bar and the ability to macro my CD abilities to clear up some room on my bar, because This Shit is getting out of hand. I could always bind to the left bar, but that still doesn't solve my problem.

What the hell is up with the Heroic Locust on Taris? Level 16 my ass. We were all 18+ and getting our asses handed to us my mobs of 6 elites.

Just send in the COGs. I'm sure Bioware calls it an homage. I call it kind of lame. Your crowd control abilities are likely limited, but do what you can and make sure to focus targets. Always kill weaks first, moving up to the strongs and elites. Weaker mobs still hit hard, but go down much faster.

[Darth Yan]

So who's the toughest end boss

1.) The Emperor
2.) The First Son
3.) Baras
4.) Thanaton
5.) Rakton
6.) Whoever the fuck the agent is up against
7.) Voidwolf
8.) Tormen/Elite Guard

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Hahahahahaha. I don't know about the others, but the Sith Emperor is not even remotely soloable.

He actually doesn't have that much HP and I can get him down to about 60% health if I throw in the kitchen sink, but that's as good as it gets. I don't know what lunatic designed this mission.

[White Haven]

Thanaton is a joke for a tankasin with a healing companion. A long fight, but an easy one. Then Darth NoName steals your thunder and snaps the fucker's neck. >.<

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Ok, I managed to kill the Emperor through flagrant abuse of game mechanics:
Spoiler

He can (sometimes, it tends to bug out) be kited out to the preceding spiral ramp chamber. You can then Push him off the edge and get about ~75% of his health off in one go if you manage to get him to take the full fall. As long as you manage the clone spam by whacking them as they come back out into the chamber (Awe helps), you can concentrate on the real one and Push again if necessary.

[Mr Bean]

Thanaton was easy as a healer spec'd Inquisitor as well, just keep interrupting him and letting Khem take the hits while refreshing your purge and bubbles on him and yourself. The key is know which things to interrupt, don't bother with Force Lightning or Force Storm in the final fights but stop his death fields and the other attack I think is called disruption. He has a 5th attack that's instant use you can't stop which is why you need to keep purging Khem as it does 4k damage if any Dots are running on him. Thanaton was a long fight but an easy one.

No for hard fights the worse was the @#$# Byss prophet on Voss as part of the Voss storyline he's called the Avatar of something and has nothing but massive spike damage and more stuns than you can shake a stick at.

[Flagg]

Ok, Darth Baras looks like retarded Cosplay crossed with an oven.

[Mr Bean]

Ok, Darth Baras looks like retarded Cosplay crossed with an oven.

Wait until you meet the Dread Masters on Belsvavis. They had to come up with six designs for evil looking Sith Lords who can cause raw terror so powerful as to disable entire fleets and are basically walking talking evil bastards who can break the minds of mortal men with ease. And to their credit of the six designs I say one is pretty intimidating, one is okay but the other four are various levels of "bad cosplay" as you call it.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Got my Jugg up to Balmorra, I forgot how much Balmorra just drags on and on, fuck I hate this planet. Decided to jump off at like 3 in the afternoon to level a trooper to break up the monotony, with the rest of the afternoon to play I levelled him up into a lvl11 Assault-Commando, ran The Eselles once just to see what the Republic's analogue for The Black Talon was (Black Talon is infinitely better than Eselles, Black Talon never made me ask myself 'are we done yet'?) and luckily got the Eselles Assault Cannon. Gonna go finish up Balmorra so I can get Captain Quinn and head to Nar Shaddaa.

[DudeGuyMan]

I read the words "tanking blaster" and almost puked. Someone wake me up when somebody makes something that isn't Everquest.