Ranking the 7.7 Dynamic Encounter Planets

I've been meaning to write more about the dynamic encounters that were added with patch 7.7 for a while, but I struggled to make up my mind about what format I was going to use for the post. I had fun with the top ten lists I made for Hoth and Tatooine, but that format doesn't work so well when you're dealing with a larger number of planets, each of which has a much smaller number of dynamic encounters than those two.

I ultimately decided that I'm just going to rank the planets against each other instead, talking about each planet in more general terms instead of discussing too many individual encounters in detail.

Going from best to worst, I would start with: 

1. Dromund Kaas

If you split the seven planets that had dynamic encounters added in 7.7 into three groups - capital worlds, starter planets and Ilum - I think both of the capital worlds definitely came out on top. With more than twenty unique encounters per planet they offer the most variety of the bunch, as well as offering an easy way to grind Conquest points.

The encounters on Dromund Kaas are thematically very varied, mostly leaning into the different regional "themes" previously established in side missions, such as the spaceport being somewhat in disarray or the lightning spires being under attack. They mostly seem to be set in the same time period as those original exploration missions, though I noticed while dispersing unruly Imperial citizens in Kaas City that one of them yelled "What is Xarion hiding?", which I thought was an interesting detail that would place that one after Onslaught in the timeline.

In general, most of the encounters are quick and fun, and strategically placed in locations where people are bound to come through on their way to some other mission objective, making it very temping to allow yourself to be distracted for a moment to complete an encounter. Prime examples of this are doing "Bad Monkey" just after arriving at the spaceport, or hunting down the rogue bounty hunter while passing through Kaas City.

If I had to cite anything negative, I'd say that there are a couple of encounters with flaws. The Apex Predator in "Shock and Awe" feels way overtuned for levelling players (trying to solo it on a level thirty-something with a healer companion I was chunked to death within only a couple of hits), and the final boss for "Kubaz Incursion" can be a bit annoyingly hard to find. "Powder Keg" actually being possible to fail is a neat idea but the fact that it's the only encounter of this kind and that it's not obvious at all what is going on unless you're already in the know makes it a bit unpleasant in that regard.

Also, I wish they'd fix encounter voice lines sometimes playing when the encounter isn't even up, because every time my speeder rides past the lightning spires I get spammed with yells about multiple encounters that may not actually all be active.

Anyway, all in all it's still a fun romp, and the reason it's edging out Coruscant for first place in my opinion is that the map makes it both cheap and easy to get around if you want to do multiple encounters. Which brings us to...

2. Coruscant 

In general, Coruscant is one of my top three planets in the entire game, and most positive things I said about the dynamic encounters on Dromund Kaas above also apply to Coruscant. The reason I put it in second place is simply the fact that it's a bit of a pain to travel between dynamic encounters due to the planetary layout with the different sectors, which all count as being really far apart, which in turn means that moving between them always requires either a looong taxi ride or paying the maximum price for quick travel. Even if you do opt for quick travel though, the sectors are still laid out in such a way that it can be a pain to just travel from one dynamic encounter within the same sector to the next one.

The said, I adore most of the encounters in the Senate Plaza, which is where I'm always passing through when I exit my stronghold, and I basically never pass on an opportunity to set off some fireworks or to help clean up the party's aftermath.

Negatives are that some of the Black Sun and Justicar encounters don't have nearly enough clickies if there's even more than one person trying to do the encounter at the same time, the way Ugnaught Engineering was horrifically bugged when it first came out and made people get into fights about who was supposedly causing it to bug, stealing kills or whatever (regardless of whether it was true or not), and the one encounter on the Senate Plaza that I don't like, "Understaffed". Like with "Powder Keg", you can tell someone just wanted to try something different there, but the final result is just too undercooked, with a tutorial mode that teaches you to do things the wrong way, and people being able to ruin the encounter for each other - both intentionally and unintentionally - which is never a good thing.

3. Tython 

Next we have the starter planets, which I think are all pretty similar in quality, and I don't feel particularly strongly about the order in which I've ranked them against each other. The main reason I consider them worse than the capital planets it that there are very few encounters, so you'll run out of things to do pretty quickly if you're just trying to grind on a single planet, and that none of the DEs on the starter planets give Conquest points. I can see why the devs decided to have that limitation, but it still means that for someone who's very Conquest-focused like me, they tend to have a lot less replay value.

With that general preamble out of the way, Tython is definitely my favourite of the bunch, since it's my favourite of all the starter planets and I think all its dynamic encounters are very on point, whether you're doing simple chores at the Jedi Temple or beating back the flesh raiders.

The only thing I'll say is that I do wonder a little how having a dynamic encounter pop up the moment you leave your intro phase is going to affect new players' perception of the planet and the game as a whole, and whether it might make things come off as a bit "loud" and overwhelming to less experienced gamers. I would love to have insight into the devs' behavioural metrics on the starter planets for that one... 

4. Hutta

Hutta is actually one of my least favourite planets, generally speaking, but I think in terms of dynamic encounters it works well enough. Again, the themes of the encounters go very well with what's also conveyed via the existing side missions, from dangerous wildlife to rebellious evocii.

The only thing I'm not so sure about is having an encounter that is basically a vehicle quest right outside the spawn phase, because it makes me wonder whether that isn't a bit confusing/overwhelming for new players. Even if seeing a bunch of droids enter the gang wars right outside the Poison Pit does serve to drive home the point that the town is a bit of a mess. 

5. Ord Mantell

Ord Mantell is one of two planets where I actually feel like some of the encounters are slightly off in tone. This may very well be my personal bias speaking, as someone who mains a trooper and was instantly scarred by being blamed for the death of Bellis the informant at the hands of the separatists by multiple people, but I always perceived the whole setting with the separatists as very dark and desperate. Even the smuggler story with all its goofiness has a pretty dark turn here with Corso's parents being dead because of the separatists and him having that one moment where he wants to execute that random sep in cold blood.

With that said, I just feel like some of the encounters involving separatists feel a bit too silly. Like that mad scientist type sending you out to shoot separatists with one of his droids? It's one thing if there's a specific NPC that's bit ridiculous when you talk to them, that's clearly just that one character, but the fact that you hear the dynamic encounter yells repeated endlessly even when you're just driving by gives them a much stronger impact on the mood in my opinion. Might just be me.

6. Korriban

That's also the reason why I rate Korriban last of this batch, because again, several of the encounters just feel a bit too goofy to me personally. Don't get me wrong, both the Sith warrior and inquisitor stories have plenty of humorous moments even on Korriban, but I still always got the vibe that as a setting, the planet is clearly meant to be very grim, with all the racial purity nonsense and dog-eat-dog behaviour encouraged in the acolytes. Stuff like k'lor'slugs running wild around the academy feels more like the kind of hijinx you'd find in a young adult book series about a magic school. (That said, looking at how busy each planet is, this one actually seems to be very popular with people, so again, this might just be me.)

7. Ilum 

Finally, in last place - alas, poor Ilum. I really wanted the addition of dynamic encounters to this planet to feel like a revival for it. I have some fond memories of Ilum from the game's early days, even though it felt somewhat unfinished even then, but over time it's only ever declined in relevance. Sadly I can't say that I feel like dynamic encounters have put it back on people's radar, and based on the small number of other people I see doing encounters there, I get the impression that it didn't really land for the majority of the population either.

Good things first: the theming is once again spot-on on this one. They really leaned into the Republic vs. Empire conflict from the original storyline and even added some encounter achievements that are meant to encourage world PvP. (I'm 99% sure that almost nobody will bother with those, but I appreciate the effort.) On the Western Ice Shelf, they've expanded on the lore of the Tonvarr Pirates that were previously only really relevant during the Gree event. It all works.

The problem is simply that too many of the encounters are just not very fun. Too many of them have multiple stages and feature a large number of mobs - when sometimes mob-killing isn't even part of the main objective, which makes it feel like you're just endlessly wading back and forth through constantly respawning mobs to actually get to the next clicky you need. It just feels tedious to the point that my brain keeps trying to forget that Ilum is another planet that has dynamic encounters now and I very rarely even remember to go there.

All that said, I wanted to also give a shout-out to a change to dynamic encounters in general that came with 7.7 but that I didn't see in the patch notes: When they released these new encounters, they changed it so that on staged DEs, you no longer need to complete every single stage by yourself to get credit, but rather you can join in at any time and still get completion. I feel that this has been a great change and has been most noticeable for me during encounters such as the base attacks on Tatooine and Hoth. It used to be that I felt that there was no point in joining in if people were already fighting the stage two walker, as it wouldn't give me anything and I'd just have to restart the encounter from scratch afterwards anyway. Now I'll gleefully jump in and help out because I'll actually be rewarded for it too, which I think has been a great change.

How many of the new encounters have you done at this point? And do you agree with my ranking of the planets or not? Let me know in the comments. 

Some Rambly First Impressions of 7.7

Patch 7.7 dropped this week! MassivelyOP's post about this fact started with the line "A big Star Wars: The Old Republic game update without a story is kind of like Christmas without the presents", which I found surprisingly poignant... but of course there were still interesting things to discover and look forward to.

First there were the new alien skin colours, which seemed to be thing that had people the most excited on social media from what I could tell, based on the number of screenshots and clips from the very first cut scene that I scrolled past and that were meant to show off the poster's newest character in a brand-new hue.

I myself ultimately didn't end up creating a new character, because I realised I still had a bunch of lowbies that I hadn't actually played that much yet. Also, am I the only one who doesn't necessarily create and start new characters at the same time? Sometimes I'll just feel like playing with the character creator and come up with a new concept that I then end up not actually playing until weeks or months later.

Anyway, this week did not feel right for creation, so I just changed the shade of yellow on my newest already existing Twi'lek. After using the character customisation station, he got teleported onto the roof of my Coruscant stronghold... the last time that happened I thought it was just a one-time glitch, but I might have to upgrade it to bug - then again, it might just get filed away under "weird stuff that happens inside player housing" anyway.

The new dynamic encounters were very fun. I took some lowbies to the starter planets to check them out as I would've felt a bit weird razing all those level 5 mobs on a max-level character in raid gear, though other people clearly had no such reservations. The new events brought a lot of existing players back to the starter worlds to check out the the new content and earn some new achievements, and the experience felt like absolute mayhem. Anyone who just so happens to start playing SWTOR for the first time this week must be wondering what the holy hell is going on once they leave their first story phase. Now, this particular level of craziness obviously won't last, but I do think that in the long run these new encounters will still serve to make things a lot more lively on the starter planets going forward, and I can't help but wonder how that will affect players' first impressions of the game in the future. 

Unlike when the first dynamic encounters were added to Tatooine and Hoth, I didn't check these newest ones out on the PTS this time, so it was all fresh and exciting to me. Even having only checked out the starter planets so far, I thought it was very charming how the new encounters were used to enhance the mood and setting of each area. For example the Jedi training grounds on Tython were always meant to be under attack by flesh raiders when you first arrive there, but it was all fairly tame, with the same couple of NPCs shooting at each other without anything really happening. Now there's an actual dynamic encounter about a flesh raider attack on top of that, during which you'll see way more mobs spawn, as well as a proper flurry of activity from players joining the fight or otherwise defending the area. It's quite cool. Jiguuna on Hutta was another good example, as there's always meant to be a gang war going on there when you arrive, but now that is dialled up to eleven when the associated dynamic encounter is going on.

I have yet to dip my toes into the encounters on the capital worlds and on Ilum, but I don't want to rush to "the end" and reach a point where I've seen it all too quickly. My ops team also wants to check out XR-53 on master mode, and while I'm personally not hopeful that we'll make much progress on it, it's at least another new thing to check out. 

Shintar's Galactic Season 6 Diary, Week 4

After the madness of trying to push for a win in Total Galactic War while also doing seasons across all servers at once, week four looked like it was going to be positively chill. There was some oddness in the weekly objectives though, as there were two origin story objectives as well as two flashpoint objectives. Here's how I viewed the lot of them:

• Earn 200k Conquest points: Yes, easy, no problem.
  
• Visit another player's Manaan stronghold: Sure, of course.
  
• Complete 8 repeatable or side missions and kill 100 mobs on the capital worlds Coruscant or Dromund Kaas: I was definitely going to do this one, as I had plenty of alts in that level range across all servers.
  
• Complete 15 missions as a Jedi knight or Sith warrior: Another definitive yes.
• Complete 15 missions as a Jedi consular or Sith inquisitor: While the doubling up seemed weird to me, I saw no reason not to do both.
  
• Dig up 3 treasures at a seeker droid dig site: So, I generally like this one and there's a reason I made sure to unlock the seeker droid on at least one character on all servers. It's very chill and can be done while queueing for something else, but it can be kind of time-consuming as well if you're unlucky with your digs, so I figured I was going to do it on some servers, but not all.
  
• Complete 2 out of 4 selected "Underworld" flashpoints (Mandalorian Raiders, Cademimu, Directive 7, Spirit of Vengeance): I figured I might do this on a couple of servers, but not all.
  
• Complete 2 out of the 4 Revan flashpoints (Taral V, Maelstrom Prison, Boarding Party, The Foundry): Now this was super odd to me and I figured I might do either one flashpoint objective or the other, but there was no way I was going to do four flashpoints on each server.
  
• Earn 25 medals in Galactic Starfighter: I'm not a huge fan of this objective as I'm not great at GSF, so this one takes me at least three times as long as the regular "play matches" one. Still, I figured I might maybe do it on Darth Malgus.
  
• KotET chapter 7 on veteran mode or higher: As usual, no.
  
• Colossal Monolith on any difficulty: Like other lair bosses, I figured this was a given with my guild on Darth Malgus, but unlikely (though not impossible) to happen anywhere else.
  

Day 1 - Tuesday

I slept very little that night, followed by a long day in the office (where I was biting my nails around lunch time waiting for the results of Conquest to come in). As soon as I got home, it was time for our usual Tuesday raid, where we all (somewhat unusually) played like muppets. I had a brief look at the Conquest results that our... "Conquest accountant" sent me but was otherwise happy to go to bed early, not doing anything for seasons that day at all.

Day 2 - Wednesday

I decided to do a quick round of all the servers around lunch time, but before the reset. On Leviathan and Tulak Hord, doing few missions on Dromund Kaas on my inquisitors there got the daily objective done quickly (and offered nice synergy for the weeklies).

On Satele Shan, my knight still had a bunch of completed side missions from Coruscant in her log from god knows how many months ago, so I started by running around and handing all of them in. I was somewhat dismayed to find that only one of them counted as an exploration mission for the Coruscant seasons objective, but nonetheless I picked up some more where I had left off. As Conquest gains for low-level missions were much lower on a higher-level character, I eventually relogged my consular to finish off the seasons daily with a quick companion level-up.

On Star Forge, I logged into my lowbie consular and did some more missions on Tython. I smashed some flesh raiders and levelled up a couple of times until the daily objective was done.

Since it was getting close to reset at this point, I just expanded my Coruscant stronghold on Shae Vizla and ranked up a crew skill. On Darth Malgus I gave a companion gift to push me over the daily requirement (the previous night's ops had earned me some points already).

It was a busy day for me and I didn't get to play more until relatively late in the evening. I started by playing two GSF matches on Darth Malgus, before switching to Leviathan to continue questing on Dromund Kaas on my inquisitor. I only had to hand in two missions before hitting the daily objective.

On Tulak Hord, I decided to mix things up a bit by queueing for a random veteran mode flashpoint on my inquisitor. She was only eligible for nine of them, and five were featured seasons objectives, so I figured what were the odds? Of course I then got Black Talon, which was one of the not featured ones. Someone expressed annoyance as soon as we zoned in and quit the group the moment not everyone space-barred on the first cut scene. Ironically it went much faster after that person had left... at least the run completed my daily objective and counted as my inquisitor completing several missions.

On Satele Shan, I did a few more missions with my knight until I hit the Taskmaster Conquest objective and with that also my seasons daily. On Star Forge, I continued on Tython with my baby consular, and it didn't take long until she achieved Taskmaster and the daily objective too.

On Shae Vizla, I was about to continue my consular's class story for the missions as a consular when I realised I'd never done the Coruscant or Dromund Kaas side missions on this server. So I returned to Coruscant, hoovered up all the exploration missions and killed Migrant Merchants Guild members until I saw that lovely "influencing the galaxy" pop-up. I was ready for bed by then.

Day 3 - Thursday

After another long day at the office, I logged into Darth Malgus and just played a GSF match there. We won and this completed my 200k Conquest points objective, but only advanced me towards the 25 medals for GSF by one.

On Leviathan I did some more Dromund Kaas missions on my inquisitor, and on Tulak Hord I decided to spin the wheel in the group finder again. This time I got Cademimu and had a smooth enough run. The lowest-level person got a bit lost at one point after dying and having to run back, but I'm happy to say that we backtracked to rescue them and no unfriendly words were said. Apparently this counted as having completed 15 missions as an inquisitor already.

On Star Forge I continued on my baby consular on Tython, until she too hit the 15 missions completed objective. On Satele Shan, my knight handed in one mission on Coruscant, which completed her business there - since I still needed to complete more missions as a knight, however, I then continued with her class story on Alderaan until the daily objective was complete too. My consular on Shae Vizla also finished the objective on Coruscant before getting her daily done.

Day 4 - Friday

I did a bit of PvP on Darth Malgus around lunch time, and got put into four Voidstars in a row, three of which were losses. Thanks, game!

Later, I logged through all the servers to do a bit of tidying up - one side-effect of last week's Conquest mania was that while I had found time for some seasons objectives, I'd neglected to clear out my bags and they were full of junk everywhere. On Leviathan I followed this up with a few more Dromund Kaas missions on my inquisitor, and on Tulak Hord I decided that my inqusitor there might as well finish her "Searching for Allies" weekly mission by queueing for one more random flashpoint. I got the Foundry this time, which was also on the list of featured flashpoints. I also liked this run because we actually had a polite conversation about whether to do the bonus or not - we ultimately decided not to, but only after talking about it!

On Star Forge I decided to try my luck with the random queue on my knight, but unfortunately she just got a Hammer Station. At least that completed the daily objective, and somehow counted as no fewer than six missions completed as a Jedi knight. On Satele Shan, I completed my knight's class story on Alderaan, which ticked her over the 15 missions completed there.

On Shae Vizla, I decided to queue for a random veteran flashpoint on my consular. After a few minutes of waiting I realised that since it was still relatively early in the evening for me, most APAC players were probably still asleep, but just as I thought about going to do something else I got a pop after all. After a quick Taral V run with lots of trash skipping, I was halfway towards another flashpoint objective and had 15 missions as a consular ticked off on this server as well.

Later in the evening, I returned to Tulak Hord and did 15 missions on Tython on my littlest Jedi knight who is too low-level to do Conquest as of yet. By the time he completed the objective, he was level 9.

Day 5 - Saturday

In the morning I decided to log into Shae Vizla and queue for all the featured flashpoints on both veteran and master mode on my warrior. I got into a vet mode Boarding Party with a level 80 Sorc healer who used their knockback on cooldown to scatter trash mobs to the four winds. After one particularly egregious example where one of my smashes went into thin air after they'd knocked three mobs away from me a half-second before I would've hit them, I politely asked if they could stop doing that. They didn't respond and continued doing their thing, so I put them on ignore at the end of the run. Kind of petty, I know, but Boarding Party is a long flashpoint, and being trolled on every single trash pull was getting pretty damn aggravating. At some point I don't care anymore whether they were doing it intentionally or just a complete newbie who doesn't know their abilities and doesn't read chat, I just didn't want to get grouped with them again. At least this completed one of my flashpoint seasons objectives, plus it counted as completing five missions on my warrior.

I queued again for the remaining four flashpoints and got Mandalorian Raiders this time. I had a brief sweat drop moment when on the second pull the Sniper in the group catapulted a group of mobs away from me, but he was actually trying to defend himself and it was just a one-time thing. I enjoyed this run otherwise.

In the afternoon I mostly played GSF and did PvP on Darth Malgus. The GSF matches went a bit better than before and got me to 20/25 medals for the seasons objective.

In the evening I used our social night to kill the Colossal Monolith and get both flashpoint objectives done with Mr Commando. We chain-ran master mode Boarding Party, Spirit of Vengeance, the Foundry and Mandalorian Raiders in a single session. It felt long. On the plus side, since I made a point of asking to do this on Imp side (where we usually spend less time), we also got a bunch of achievement progress.

On the other servers I did the following things in the evening:

On Leviathan, I did a couple more Dromund Kaas missions on my inquisitor. The daily was done after only two of them and I was starting to realise that, since I usually switched servers after hitting the 25k Conquest for the daily and for some reason that was happening really quickly while playing my inquisitor, I had completed zero weeklies on Leviathan yet. I made a mental note to push myself a bit more on Sunday.

On Tulak Hord, I did a Dromund Kaas heroic on my inquisitor since I had run out of exploration missions for her to do. Interestingly, when you do this objective via the optional one-time quests, you'll usually get your kills way before you've completed enough missions, but the heroics seemed to be shaping up the opposite, though she did hit the 200k Conquest points earned objective. Logging over to Republic side, I put my trooper into the queue for all the featured flashpoints on master mode, though it was kind of late and nothing popped. I went and did a heroic on Coruscant to pad my kill count on the capital worlds and push myself over the 25k required for the daily objective.

On Satele Shan, I thought I'd queue for some seasonal flashpoints while digging for treasure on my consular, but I got a pop before I even made it to the dig site. I got into a vet mode Taral V that was... stressfully fast. Look, I've resigned myself to people wanting to skip and rush to some degree, and at times I even welcome it! But there are degrees, and the guy who took the lead in this run was just driving on and pulling more while completely ignoring the rest of the group, whether anyone got dismounted or aggroed a group we were trying to skip... the vibe was definitely "I can solo this so the rest of you don't matter to me". We completed the run smoothly enough but I felt unhappy and wished that people weren't like that.

Since I was now halfway done with one flashpoint objective and I wasn't sure I wanted to do both on this server, I queued again for Taral V and Maelstrom Prison only. And I got Taral V again! With the same guy! This time I managed to fall off a bridge at one point, something that hasn't happened to me in ages, though I was fortunate enough to not die... I landed safely further down the path we had originally taken, so just had to loop back around while the rest of the group continued on. To the guy's credit, they did give me a moment to catch up eventually... or maybe they were just slowed down by the unskippable mobs on the bridge... Either way: so not necessary.

On Star Forge I braved the random veteran queue on my Jedi knight again and got a Cademimu run this time, which counted for one of the flashpoint objectives. Nothing remarkable about that one other than that General Ortol almost forgot about his rockets... he only fired a single one towards the end, just before he was about to die.

On Shae Vizla, I queued for the set of four featured flashpoints again and went to visit a Manaan stronghold in the meantime (fortunately a public one was available). This gave me a bunch of Conquest for completing four weekly objectives, so when nothing popped after ten minutes or so, I just used a rep token to push me the last bit of the way to the daily requirement and called it a night.

Day 6 - Sunday

Around lunch time before reset, I logged into Leviathan to play a bit of catch-up. I queued for the featured underworld flashpoints and got into a vet mode Mandalorian Raiders that was interesting in a couple of ways. First off, we killed Braxx before his hounds and the world didn't end... I thought they had an enrage or something! But then on the last boss, most of us were still killing the turrets outside his room when one guy charged in and pulled the boss, and by the time we joined him, the boss was almost dead while only having spawned a single set of turrets? I have no idea how that went down. Anyway, the guy /stucked because of course the remaining turrets kept us in combat and he told us to do the same, but we just killed them instead. Afterwards I dug up some treasure with my seeker droid. While I was still only on one weekly completed at that point, I was partially done with a lot of others and felt like I was in a much better place.

I then logged over to Tulak Hord and queued for all the featured flashpoints on master mode again. I got into a Cademimu run where we even did the bonus boss and I was happy with that.

After reset I logged into Shae Vizla and queued for the underworld flashpoints first and got an instant pop for Mandalorian Raiders vet mode. This run completed both that flashpoint objective plus 15 missions as a Sith warrior, taking me to 7/7 weeklies completed on this server.

A bit later I logged into Leviathan and queued for the underworld flashpoints on my knight again. I got an instant pop and was pleasantly surprised to find myself in Spirit of Vengeance. Having four flashpoints to pick from for variety is less effective when a lot of people specifically avoid certain ones - I was fully expecting to see nothing but Cademimu and Mando Raiders in the public queue all week. It went fine and completed that flashpoint weekly objective for me.

Afterwards I visited a Manaan stronghold and since I was still short a few missions as a knight, I took her to Balmorra (where she's currently in her class story) and cleared out Sobrik to get that done as well. This put me at 5/7 weeklies completed on Leviathan, with two more almost complete and easy to finish off the next day.

I visited Star Forge next and decided to complete my knight's vet mode flashpoint weekly by queueing for one more random. I continued to have bad luck and got into a Hammer Station. The group had a level 80 Sage healer who took point. When we expected them to make the first corner pull, they just kept running... and running... all the way to the drill, where they then stood and spammed heals on themselves. We eventually caught up and AoE-d everything down that they had pulled, but I was glad I wasn't the only one who expressed confusion about this strat in chat. When we got to the retractable bridge, they raced across just before it turned off, and then slowly soloed the next pull on the other side while the rest of us actually killed the turrets. I got the feeling they quietly cursed our "inefficiency" as they didn't say another word the entire run and quit instantly the moment the completion message came up. While I'd now completed 15 missions as a Jedi knight, I was only on 3/7 weeklies otherwise and not too happy about that, but I wasn't sure whether I could be bothered with a push for much more.

I decided to log over to Darth Malgus for the time being, where I did a GSF weekly on one of my Sith warriors, pushing me over the 15 missions completed as a knight or warrior and earning the last medals I needed. Then I visited a Manaan stronghold to take me to 7/7.

I logged into Tulak Hord while eating dinner and put myself in the queue for master mode Taral V and Maelstrom Prison, but nothing popped. I ended up just doing a couple of Coruscant heroics and logging off to do something else for a while.

Late in the evening I hopped onto Satele Shan, dug up some relics, visited a Manaan stronghold and did a few missions on my consular until I hit 200k Conquest points.

Day 7 - Monday

I logged into Star Forge shortly before reset, visited a Manaan stronghold and knocked out a couple of Coruscant heroics on my trooper main. After the reset, I knocked out the last couple of missions on Dromund Kaas on my inquisitor on Leviathan, to get that server to 7/7.

I then put myself in the master mode queue for the Revan flashpoints on Tulak Hord again, even though I knew it was a bad time and ultimately nothing popped, but I was able to also do the seeker droid objective while waiting.

In the evening I logged back into my trooper on Tulak Hord again and put myself back in the queue while questing, but I barely lasted ten minutes before also listing myself for the veteran versions. I just wanted to get that last objective done! I was surprised that it then still took another ten minutes to get a pop, considering this was German prime time. The actual Taral V run then only took another ten minutes too, though this time I was quite grateful for that. Also, the guy leading the skips in this one would instantly turn back and help kill any extra mobs that were aggroed, which I thought made a world of a difference. I guess it's less about skipping or not skipping and more about working together and with the other members of your group. Anyway, this brought me to 7/7 on Tulak Hord as well.

Hopping over to Star Forge, I put my trooper into the master mode flashpoint queue for the underworld flashpoints and did more heroics on Coruscant until the related seasons objective was ticked off. Just as I was about to start digging for treasure, I got a pop for master mode Mandalorian Raiders. This was a smooth and pleasant run that stood out to me for the tank's perfect calculation of number of mobs needed for the bonus boss, as we killed exactly 80 and not one more (and the reason I could tell this was calculated was that he was a Shadow, which allowed us to skip some pulls, but he got just the right number for us to unlock the bonus boss too). Once done, I dug up three treasures on Alderaan and with that, was 7/7 on Star Forge as well.

On Satele Shan I just had to complete a couple more story missions on Belsavis with my consular to go 7/7, which just left me to earn 25k Conquest points for the daily objective done on Darth Malgus and Shae Vizla, which was achieved easily enough. (Incidentally, one of the random master mode flashpoints I decided to run on Darth Malgus ended up being Ruins of Nul, but that has nothing to do with seasons... let's just say it was still a pain but we got there in the end.)

Week 4 - Thoughts

I was kind of surprised by how much effort this week took. By Sunday I was definitely considering forfeiting full credit for the week on some servers, but then I was pretty close already, so giving up so close to the finish line would've been annoying as well. In hindsight I think the problem was that this week was one that greatly benefitted from synergies between different objectives (such as doing the planetary missions or flashpoints on one of the featured origin stories) but I didn't always min-max that aspect and when I didn't, it actually increased the time required by a lot. I also wasted some time on the random queue without getting into the flashpoints I actually needed, clearly overestimating my odds with a total of eight flashpoints eligible for seasons objectives. I need to learn to resist the lure of that, even if it's much easier than trying to find the correct boxes to tick in the unsorted jumble that is the full flashpoint list in the group finder panel nowadays.

Some of the objectives also highlighted to me the differences between the "efficient" way to do them and what I find fun, and again, they didn't always align. Doing four flashpoints on master mode with my guildies, including all the bonuses, was certainly interesting and enjoyable, but it also took us more than two hours. Comparatively, veteran mode Taral V with a pug that just rushes to the end barely takes ten minutes, but is also quite boring. Same with doing exploration missions on Coruscant or Dromund Kaas on a lowbie that's levelling (which includes watching all the cut scenes) vs. just blasting through the heroic circuit on a level 80.

Planets I'd like to revisit

With 7.3's return to Voss, it's natural to wonder what other existing planets might be interesting to revisit as part of the ongoing storyline. Calphy shared his thoughts on this back in May, and in this reddit discussion thread on the subject people were offering up a lot of differing opinions a few months ago. Doesn't mean that I don't still want to add my own thoughts on the matter though! So without further ado, my personal top picks for planets I hope we'll get to revisit in the story at some point:

1. Alderaan

This was Calphy's first choice and the second most upvoted option on reddit, and it's my first pick as well. Now, it obviously helps that Alderaan is already my second favourite planet in the entire game, but it's not just about that. The lore surrounding the different houses in the base game is pretty complex, and I was not best pleased with the way the Star Fortress dialogue for Alderaan seemed to want to mostly brush that under the rug. I want to know how all those different nobles that we worked with in the class stories fared over the years! What happened after Bouris Ulgo was brought down in the planetary storyline?

I don't necessarily expect to get an update on every single story thread here, but I don't think it would be unreasonably complicated to have us visit a new house on a small new map (assuming a similar approach as was taken with the Interpreter's Retreat) and have some people there chat with us about at least some of the things that have been happening on Alderaan in the last few years.

2. Taris and Balmorra

I'm putting these two together because I want to return to both of them for the same reason, though I think the case for Taris is somewhat stronger than for Balmorra. Basically, what both of these planets have in common is that in the base game, they are in the unique position of existing in two different states at different points in time.

Republic players help with the reconstruction of Taris around level 20 and things seem to be going well, but then the Empire invades the planet and Imperial players get to beat the Republic back around level 40. For Balmorra it's the opposite, with Imperials seeing it firmly under Imperial control around level 20 (though they have to fight off rebels), until Republic players show up around level 40 and push the Imps back off the planet.

I always thought this was an interesting concept as it allows territory to change hands without making either side feel like a loser... though it is a bit weird that there's basically a whole story there that you wouldn't know anything about if you didn't play both factions. If you only ever played Empire for example, you might well think that your faction still owns Balmorra, because you're never told that it's been lost.

So the reason I think either of these planets would be interesting to revisit is that it would give us a chance to "canonically" get caught up with the current state of affairs, with Republic players having to deal with the loss of Taris and Imperials having to stomach being pushed off Balmorra. The reason I think Taris would be slightly more interesting is that we don't really know what happened there after the Imperial victory - how much did the Imps care about rebuilding there, and did they even have the resources after Fallen Empire? With Balmorra, we at least have a vague notion that it continued to support the Republic later.

3. Korriban and Tython

It's easy to see why there's a certain appeal to going back to the old starter worlds. I think most players have pretty fond memories of these (less so of Ord Mantell and Hutta, I suppose) and we know that they've been razed both during the prelude to Shadow of Revan and then again when the Fallen Empire invaded. We want to see them rebuilt and know how things have changed since our own Jedi and Sith were little! Have the Sith changed in any way in terms of the cruelty of their training? Whatever happened to those Twi'lek settlers on Tython?

I do think those are interesting questions, but the main reason I rank these two planets somewhat lower is that in practical terms, I can't see us going back to a fully rebuilt version of the exact same area of Tython and Korriban that we already know (as in, the Jedi Temple and the Sith Academy respectively). Assuming we'd follow the Interpreter's Retreat model of going to a different part of the planet that's set further in the future, it's just hard to image that being quite as interesting here. Still, I guess it would be nostalgic if nothing else.

How do you feel about revisiting older planets in new storylines?

The New Character Experience in LotS

I'm kind of at a point in SWTOR where I feel that my several dozen alts are enough to experience what I primarily want out of the game and that I don't really "need" any more, but that doesn't prevent me from occasionally rolling up a new alt for a specific purpose anyway. For example I've been very curious about how the 7.0 class and UI changes feel on a brand-new character. Long-time players like me complaining about losing their 29th ability button are one thing, but I was under the impression that a lot of these changes were primarily targeted at new and returning players anyway, in order to make things more appealing and less complicated for them.

While I can't un-know everything I know about the game after ten years of playing, I could roll up a new character on a server where I don't usually play very much and where I have no notable legacy unlocks, to see what that experience felt like. I already mentioned in a previous post that I created a new Jedi knight on Star Forge, but with the Shadow combat style, which was previously reserved for consulars.

First off: character creation. My opinion on the new character creation screen has largely stayed the same since I first saw Swtorista tweet a screenshot of it during LotS PTS testing. It looks good, but the overall look is just very generic. Obviously changing the first half to accommodate the decoupling of base and advance class was needed, and I also like that gender is simply a toggle now instead of a separate "step", which always felt unnecessary to me. But I do miss some of the flavour that was lost, such as having information about the different species. Also, before this change I'd never really thought about it, but the previous way of having character creation take place on a space station was actually a nice story tie-in, as each class story starts with your character taking a shuttle down from orbit to the planet. Now your character's simply "born" in a black void like in some generic shooter game.

Some problems are still the same old, same old, such as finding a name. They really need to do another round of freeing up the names of unplayed characters some time, because none of the suggestions the game itself provides are ever available. Also, I found myself wishing for a back button when I accidentally overwrote all my initial choices by hitting "random". (I thought it was for randomising the name, not the appearance...)

Anyway, enough about character creation. Once you get into the game properly, the traditional scrolling Star Wars intro is notably absent, but this has been acknowledged as a bug. I know many people still hold up the class stories as the best SWTOR has to offer, but I've got to say that going back to the starter worlds it always strikes me how far the game's come in terms of its storytelling. Sure, the original class stories are still engaging, but everything from the writing to the cut scenes to the quest flow has come a long way in my opinion and is actually a lot more enjoyable in newer story installments. It's just the fact that you've got those eight completely different stories to choose from at the start that makes going back there so appealing I think.

Gameplay-wise things immediately felt a little off though. No, I don't expect the starter planets to be a huge challenge, but that's not what I mean. For example, one of the first abilities a Shadow is given is Force Breach, which starts as a damage-over-time ability. It immediately struck me what a terrible choice that was in terms of fun, because every enemy in those early levels dies within literally one or two hits, so that applying a DoT is utterly pointless.

New abilities now appear on your bar automatically whenever you level up, which is something I grumbled about when WoW first started doing it and I'm still not convinced it's an entirely good move for SWTOR either. Mostly because I think there's value in making a conscious choice to see a trainer at a time that's convenient for you, so you can actually take the time to read your new skills and acquaint yourself with them at your leisure. A new button just appearing on your quickbar in the middle of combat is easy to overlook... admittedly less so during the earlier levels when there isn't much on there yet, but it becomes more of an issue as things fill up and become visually busy.

I also found the lack of AoE for the first few levels very noticeable, as all the mobs come in groups so you're just running up to them and then whacking them to death one by one. I don't remember when you got your first AoE under the old system, maybe it took just as long, but I don't recall it feeling quite so bad... maybe because you generally got more abilities sooner. This time around, I only had enough combat abilities to fill up a little over half a bar by level ten - again, I don't have exact numbers, but I remember those skills coming in much faster during the early levels within the old system.

At level ten I also went to look for some sort of prompt to choose a specialisation and was surprised to find that the game had just put my Shadow into Infiltration spec by default. I guess I can see why the devs would do that, to avoid players accidentally gimping themselves by potentially never even choosing a spec at all. If you do discover it later, the game now let's you change specialisation with the push of a button anyway, without requiring a special legacy perk or that you visit a guy on the fleet. On the other hand though, it makes specialisation a very passive thing to begin with, and I suspect that might lead to casual players being even more likely to remain completely unaware of the concept.

For the Shadow in specific, I also found it interesting that I gained stealth at level ten, but not a single ability that only works from stealth or that behaves differently from stealth, which means it's kind of introduced as just a way of avoiding mobs instead of something that affects the way you do combat. Again, my memory may not be 100% on point here, but I seem to recall that stealth pretty much used to come combined with things that you could actually do from stealth.

On a totally unrelated note, "Introduction to Conquests" is now granted automatically when hitting level ten, which I did think was neat, as it was too easy to miss on the fleet terminal previously.

In the area leading to the Forge on Tython, there's an optional champion droid which used to be quite tough back in the day when you couldn't have a healer companion at this level, and who became utterly trivial to solo after 4.0. I thought I'd give him a go to use him as a sort of measuring stick and was kind of pleasantly surprised to find that while T7 kept healing me, without legacy buffs or anything he couldn't entirely keep up with the damage, so that my health started to slowly but surely decline. In the end I ran away and had to start kiting the droid around a pillar for the last part of the fight in order not to die, which was quite satisfying actually.

Another thing I liked was that upon finishing up my class quest at the Forge, I actually received a dual-saber right away. That may not be a brand-new change actually, but I do remember how awkward it used to be to forge yourself a special one-handed lightsaber, just to then instantly have to replace it with some green that was actually suitable for your advanced class/combat style.

After finishing Tython, the first thing I did on the fleet was to queue for a PvP match, which was a stark reminder that you really shouldn't do that at level 13. I mean, it's always been a bad idea at such a low level, but now it was even worse because I had even fewer abilities than I would have had previously. I could stealth but had no crowd control, so literally all I did for most of the Voidstar match I got into was put my single DoT on every enemy and spend the rest of the time saber/double striking. Unsurprisingly we lost, though at least the Introduction to Warzones quest gave me a few nice pieces of starter gear.

I also thought it was quite noteworthy that I didn't gain any skills at levels 11, 13 or 14, but then when I dinged 15 in the middle of a Coruscant heroic I suddenly got four new actives and a new passive at once - and worse: the passive was the one that completely morphs the way Force Breach works. I was just getting the hang of putting my DoT on every mob, then I dinged, and suddenly my DoT wasn't a DoT anymore, and couldn't be used at all unless I used other abilities to build buff stacks first... not the best experience to have while buried under a pile of mobs in the middle of a heroic. Again, this is why trainers are a good thing in my opinion.

At the end of the day, I'm not a truly new player though, so who can say how they perceive this kind of thing? To me personally it doesn't seem like a significant improvement, at least not in these early levels. For my taste, you spend too much time spamming your most basic attack simply because nothing else is available yet, and the pacing of new abilities feels awkward. I may keep experimenting with it some more though, to see how it feels as you go up in levels or when you play a combat style other than Shadow.

Pacifism Continued

Last week was Pirate Incursion week again, which meant that it was time for Pacis, my pacifist Jedi, to venture out into the world again, since Dantooine was too hostile for her and the event's quick travel option made it possible for her to go places without losing the option to return home.

I hadn't been particularly diligent doing the two daily quests on Dantooine during peace time... but I had done them often enough to get her up to level 19. Nothing much of interest happened during those routine circuits, except for that one time when so many of the Kath Hounds I tried to cure got mad at me that I didn't even manage to complete the "pet five friendly Kath Hounds" bonus. Talk about some bad luck!

Anyway, with the event on, I decided that her first order of business should be to return to Tython. While I had already fully explored it, Pacis had only been level five when she left, so I wanted to check back to see if I'd be able to do some more quests that didn't require her to fight anything.

I started off by having another poke at my class story and daring to go into the cave to confront Nalen Raloch. I couldn't remember what exactly happened in there, though I had a feeling there would be hostile mobs - but hey, I had stealth now! Indeed, Nalen summoned some flesh raiders who tried to kill me. Sadly they saw right through my stealth, but I just ran past them and out of the phase without coming to any harm. Hurray for cowardice!

I did eventually run into a dead end when I got to the part where you're supposed to defeat some training droids to earn the right to the first hilt. I'll admit: I did hesitate there, wondering if it really counted as an act of aggression to attack a training droid, but in the end I decided that this was a slippery slope and that Pacis should remain a strict non-combatant.

In terms of side missions, I dealt with the two padawans in a secret romance - it will never cease to amaze me how Bioware managed to take a situation where I think most players would naturally gravitate towards wanting to violate the Jedi code to side with the lovers and fill it with nothing but awkward and bone-headed dialogue, to the point where you really just want to turn the two of them in to be rid of them. I persisted and let them go though.

I also helped out the Jedi who wanted to analyse the memory cores of droids from the ruins - I felt a certain pride in that one since the quest said to destroy droids and scan them, but I realised that in actuality just the scanning was enough to update the quest progress. So I just waited near the entrance of the ruins and whenever another player came by and wiped out the guardians by the door on their way through, I had another couple of bodies to scan without having to lift a finger myself.

Another interesting experience was the quest to destroy the vats of flesh raider elixir - another perfectly peaceful mission I figured, until I stood in front of one and got an error message telling me that I was unable to destroy it since I didn't have a weapon equipped. D'oh! So much for vendoring my training blade because I wasn't going to need it...

I didn't want to spend money on a proper new weapon, so I just made a quick trip to my stronghold and got HK's vibroblade out of the bank - not a Shadow's preferred weapon, but using it to fight wasn't the point anyway. It just allowed me to complete the mission.

I would also have liked to help Flingeld lift his rock and to help find the missing Twi'lek boy, but neither of those quests showed up as available to me so I can only guess that they are tied to progression of the class story.

Once I'd run out of things to do on Tython (as far as I could tell) I used the shuttle to go to the fleet (which also answered my question from last time: the ability to use it is tied to level, not story progression). There I did the introductory missions for housing and crew skills. I also picked up bioanalysis, scavenging and slicing. Crafting or running missions didn't seem like a good idea for a character who'll only ever have very limited income.

Continuing to Coruscant, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of side missions I was able to complete there too: repairing network access nodes, retrieving stolen microchips and telling Nik Deleru to shove it. I'm so used to doing all the bonuses to kill x mobs that it actually took me by surprise how many main mission objectives haven't actually required any killing so far.

My only disappointment was that like on Tython, additional missions that I knew to not involve any combat were unavailable to me, presumably due to my lack of class mission progress, such as the one to intercept a parcel, to help out the security officer outside the Dealer's Den cantina, or the Gree quest chain.

As I didn't have that much time to play last week, I didn't progress any further than that before returning to Dantooine. However, the whole adventure did manage to gain Pacis another two levels and makes me feel optimistic about her next excursion: There seem to be a lot more non-combat missions than I remembered.

Did I mention I'm a pacifist?

... is one of the voice lines of (not particularly popular) consular companion Tharan Cedrax. This post isn't about him though, it's about me. Yes, I've been trying out the pacifist life!

I first brought up the idea after visiting Dantooine during peace time, and got an approving comment from Charles Boyd of all people!

Oh man! Seeing someone max a character purely on peaceful Dantooine would be pretty nifty 🙂

— Charles Boyd (@Charles_Boyd) June 23, 2019

Well, now I had to do it. And thus, Pacis (pronounced "Paa-sis" in my head) the Jedi Shadow was born. It was obvious that a pacifist character had to be a Jedi, but the reason I chose Shadow was that I figured that the ability to go into stealth would come in handy when it came to avoiding combat later on.

The Pirate Incursion event wasn't actually on when I first created Pacis, so since I couldn't travel to Dantooine right away, I vendored my weapon and then walked around Tython a bit to see how far I could get without fighting anything. There were actually a couple of missions that I was able to do, such as the very first consular story quest to gather holocrons, and the side quest to visit the Twi'lek matriarch. Most of my XP had to come from simple exploration though.

Initially I was extremely paranoid about getting aggro on anything, but I soon realised that at least on the starter planet nothing really hurt very much. By the end I was happily charging through tunnels filled with hostiles twice my level and they would barely scratch me before I'd run far enough to get them to evade again.

I ran out of areas to explore by level five, but was still not allowed off the planet. I genuinely can't remember whether the ability to use the shuttle is gated by your class story or your level. The error messaging tied to that could certainly be more informative.

Anyway, I left it at that and waited for the Pirate Incursion event to come around again. Then I used the quick travel option in the activity finder to get to Dantooine and hid in a corner. The next time I logged back in the event was over and Pacis was able to explore in peace, only occasionally getting chased off by an Imperial spy or angry Kath Hound.

I was somewhat dismayed to find that the bonus mission to pet friendly Kath Hounds gives no XP, but of course I'm still doing it because why would anyone not do that one? However, I'm trying not to let the experience turn into a chore, so I'm not fretting about doing my two daily quests every single day. The goal is to slowly level up over time, and once the next Pirate Incursion comes around, to see if - being higher level - I end up being able to explore other planets and can find a few more non-combat quests to do. (The reason I want to wait until the next event is that without a ship of my own I won't be able to return to Dantooine otherwise.) I'll keep you posted about my progress.

Day 8: Memorable Moments #IntPiPoMo

Wondering what the hashtag in the title is all about? Click here. Want to know all the themes that I have used and will be using for my 10 Days of SWTOR Screenshots? You can find the full list here.

While I've generally appreciated the re-tuning of flashpoints and operations that Bioware did in 4.0, it has made it very hard to find screenshots for this day in my series as a lot of my memorable moments have involved downing an operations boss for the first time... and while I didn't mind having to re-learn content we'd already done nearly as much as I initially feared, getting those "new but old" kills didn't really feel all that satisfying and exciting either. The one screenshot I could find was this one: 

... which shows me and my ops team standing proud after having downed the Cartel Warlords in Scum and Villainy on NiM post-4.0. The original iteration of this nightmare mode operation was crazy hard - we didn't even get the first boss down until we overgeared him significantly, and even then we couldn't get past Thrasher. We didn't down the rest of the bosses until we outlevelled them in Shadow of Revan, and even then Styrak remained a challenge. So it did feel like a genuine achievement to clear most of the instance at level, even if it seems to have been nerfed quite a bit compared to its level 55 difficulty. (We didn't even try Stryak though.)

A memorable moment from the DvL event was when I finally got that kolto barrel achievement from Depths of Manaan! I think I mentioned previously that it seemed like everyone already had it as nobody was ever competing with me for the barrels anymore whenever I pugged it, but this year I finally got it too - incidentally, my pet tank got his in the same run.

This is my DvL Shadow levelling up and isn't really that memorable by itself, but I felt like using this screenshot since she dinged off killing that champion droid on Tython, and killing that has often been a milestone for my lowbie Jedi. Too bad the 4.0 changes have made it completely trivial and therefore a lot less interesting.

I've written about the guy who "stole" my name (incidentally, he seems to have stopped playing in KotFE, or at least he was still level 60 last I checked) but I don't feel antagonistic towards people who have a name that is only similar to mine - in fact the opposite is the case and I find it highly amusing. A good example here is Master Shin the Guardian, whom I met in a couple of random warzones. I had incredible fun yelling out things like "don't die, Shin" or "great job, Shin" while my guildies rolled their eyes at me.

IntPiPoMo count: 67

Togruta Day!

Yesterday we finally saw the drop of the long-awaited (and briefly delayed) patch 3.3, or "the Togruta patch" as I like to call it. Sure, there were other things to be excited about, such as the changes to warzone commendations, the new stronghold on Yavin IV, Medical Probe losing its name and tooltip...

 

... wait, what? /scratches head

But the new species was definitely the thing that got me personally the most excited. And I'm not even that crazy about the Togruta. The most prominent in-game Togruta characters that I can think of off the top of my head are the inquisitor companion Ashara Zavros, and Master Bela Kiwiiks from the Jedi knight class story. However, fans of the Clone Wars series were clearly excited to be able to make their own versions of Ahsoka Tano.

Me? I just like playing with the character creator and rolling new alts, even if I'm not sure I'll keep playing them. Can you believe it's been over two years since we got the Cathar? Then again, while that's a reasonably long time, it doesn't really feel unusually long to someone like me who started in World of Warcraft. After all, Blizzard also tends to release new races only every other expansion or so. However, I do like the way Bioware seems to be saving its new species for "filler patches" so far, which means that they come out at what's pretty much the perfect time to roll an alt.

I was curious to see how closely the new Togruta player characters would resemble the existing NPCs in the game. After all, with the Cathar it was a bit of a surprise how different the options in the character creator looked from the non-player characters we'd come to know and love, and that there wasn't a way to recreate your favourite NPC as an alt.

As it turns out, the Togruta deviate a lot less in that regard, though Bioware still hasn't given us the means to copy certain NPC looks. For example I couldn't find the option to have a facial pattern exactly like Ashara's or to have perfectly straight rings on the montrals (the horn/tentacle things) the way certain characters have them. However, the one major difference I noticed was that the top montrals on the male Togruta are oddly short and stumpy compared to what we're used to. I wonder why.

I do like that you get the option to use a much wider variety of colours than we usually see, as most in-game Togruta seem to have a red or orange face with white and blue montrals. Personally, I made one that's all yellow! Again, I don't know if I'll play her much at all - she's only level four, but I just wanted to be part of the release day fun. (I also got to see that I'm up to having thirty items in my inbox now when I create a new character... I didn't even dare touch my mail.)

My little yellow Togruta is a knight, so I was roaming around Tython last night, along with dozens of other Togruta. It was actually startling to see a character that was of a different species. People were joking in general chat about how so many players complain about not wanting to give Bioware any money, yet a new species that cost Cartel Coins was immediately all over the place. Apparently things were similarly crazy at the Sith Academy on Korriban.

Togruta everywhere!

Did you join the craze as well? Either way: Happy Togruta Day(s) to all!

Day 2: Class Stories

This is the second post in my 10 Days of SWTOR Screenshots challenge. Click on any screenshot to see a larger version.

Last time I posted this challenge, the game had only been out for about six months and I had only completed two class stories, so those two were all I had pictures of (plus the print screen bug caused me to miss out on a lot of great moments). By now I've seen all the different class stories, so any recent screenshots come from alts on which I'm replaying them for the second or third time. This has the nice side effect that I know exactly when some of the best moments are about to happen, and thanks to Fraps I can actually capture them.

Many people seem to agree that the Jedi consular story doesn't really get interesting until it gets to Chapter 2. While I honestly liked all three chapters during my first playthrough, Balmorra was certainly the planet where I first remember thinking: "Wow, this is cool." Part of this was thanks to Zenith, a companion whom I really like, and part of it was due to the fact that you get to face off against Darth Lachris, a key NPC from the main storyline on Imperial Balmorra. This really drives home the point that the class stories aren't just independent events that happen in closed off phases, but that they all tie into an overarching "world plot".

Somewhat random, but I really like it when our characters make angry faces in cut scenes, I don't know why. I think it highlights just how expressive they are compared to the in-game cut scenes you see in most other MMOs. (This is my Cathar Sith warrior by the way, also on Balmorra if I recall correctly.)

Here's my Vanguard alt meeting Captain Cormac on Alderaan. This guy is still my number one NPC that I wanted to be a companion. Honestly, I would trade him for Tanno Vik any day.

This is a little Sentinel alt of mine that is still only level 11 or so, but I had to include this screenshot because - forging your own lightsaber! Honestly, on either Jedi class this is such a cool moment. It just sucks if you're a consular and pick Shadow as your advanced class, which means that you have to replace your carefully forged saber with a random green from a goodie bag the moment you get to the fleet. Or if you're simply a noob and don't understand the modding system, you may not realise that you can actually keep that lightsaber forever. (I know that on my first character it took me some time to figure that out.)

I've said before that the Sith inquisitor is not one of my favourite class stories, but even so I'll concede that it certainly has some damn cinematic moments that make for great screenshots - such as this one.

Levelling Hipster

So this weekend has been the first one of several "double XP weekends" leading up to the launch of the expansion. From what I've seen, people have been going absolutely bonkers about it. I couldn't read Twitter or participate in any conversation in guild without multiple people piping up about OMG how many levels they already gained today, how much XP they just got for a single quest or how far ahead of the levelling curve they already were.

Personally, I've once again been living up to the tradition of being a grinch in regards to whatever the newest thing is that everybody else seems to love. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge anyone their fun. You like levelling super-fast? Good for you.

However.

I have to admit that personally, I just couldn't fight the feeling that this whole thing is just all wrong. I understand why Bioware is doing it, to push players towards the point where the expansion content will be relevant to them, and I've heard all the arguments from people about why levelling at the speed of light is great. Yes, I enjoy playing different classes at max level as well, and I do have eight fifties myself, so I've gone through the non-class story arcs multiple times already. Still, the point remains that SWTOR's levelling content is the best part of the game. If you find levelling so boring and tedious, why are you playing this game instead of a MMO that is more focused on max-level content?

(Also, the constant gushing about people's levelling speed made me realise that I'm a levelling hipster, which is what inspired the title of this post. I liked levelling before it was super-fast! And I was overlevelled for Quesh before it was cool, damn it!)

I only dipped my own toes into the accelerated levelling waters very briefly, by rolling a new consular to see what kind of effect the double XP had on the starter planet experience. I can't comment on how it affects the speed of levelling, since I tend to bimble around, get distracted, and idle while chatting regardless of how much XP I get for each task, but it was certainly unusual to be level thirteen by the time I left Tython.

Other than that I didn't feel much motivation to do a lot of levelling this weekend though. I just don't see the fun in skipping ahead quite that much; it's fast enough at normal rates of experience gain (for subscribers) and I pretty much always end up picking and choosing different bits of content to play through anyway. Fortunately I had other things to do.

Our barely a month old Sith inquisitor duo hit fifty for one thing. I took my worst ding shot ever, as the bonus boss of Battle of Ilum landed on my head right on cue.

Also, obligatory embarrassing screenshot of our newly max-level Sith in their complimentary Tionese gear:

"Remember how cool we looked while levelling?"

"Don't remind me, those were the days..."

The Sith inquisitor story write-up will have to wait however, as we only just finished Belsavis in terms of quest progression.

Speaking of finishing levelling before finishing your class story, I also took the opportunity to finally complete my Scoundrel's class story (she dinged fifty in January if you remember). In her case I hadn't been that fussed about seeing it through to the end quickly, as she was already my second smuggler and I had seen it all before. Still, in the end it was interesting that the very final bit of my class story led to a completely different conversation for a dark side aligned character, compared to what my light side gunslinger had experienced.

Also, getting all the datacrons on Corellia (something that I hadn't done before) was pretty hilarious.

Flight fail.

Fun experiences > fast experience, I say!