f13.net

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/01/12/rakghouls-and-raging-hutts-with-swtors-gabe-amatangelo/

Or I guess they're calling them Rakghouls.  In any case, a nice preview of the upcoming flashpoint.  Would be interesting to see if they pull this off before February.  I mean, I know they're aiming for Jan 17th, but 'cmon... :why_so_serious:

"Zombies have been done to death."




On a more serious note I wonder if all the content packs will be level fifty only, better hurry up the leveling.

Edit: You run into the rakghouls on Taris, it is some sort of disease created when the Empire destroyed the planet that can infect people.  Some are force sensitive.

Fake edit on edit:  I don't like all these barely sapient races having force sensitivity, seems like something that only advanced races should have.  Perhaps I'm racist.

 Was taking a break from the monotony play style, but I think I'm ready to charge through to 50 now.  Already more than halfway there.

Hurry through the content so you can get to the content for those who hurried through the content?

Fake edit: "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” I guess Ben left off the racism part. The JC (and maybe JK) plots touch on savage races with Force sensitivity. My guess is untutored it would generally lead to the dark side.

There is no dark side to the force, it's all marketing.

I'm sure at least the early content releases will focus on level 50, that's where they're currently thinner on content.

First bit of stuff seems to be coming about about the next update.

Rise of the Rakghouls (http://youtu.be/l_5pG-SeTf0?hd=1)


Link. (http://kotaku.com/5875546/check-out-hi+res-screens-and-video-from-the-old-republics-rise-of-the-rakghouls-update/gallery/1?tag=star-wars)

BW.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=21774.0

Woops.  :awesome_for_real:

Rise of the Rakghouls (http://youtu.be/l_5pG-SeTf0?hd=1)

The Rakghoul plague was present before Darth Malak's bombardment of Taris. See: KOTOR 1.  Further EU meddling has led to the Rakghoul plague being a result of Sith Magic (??).

EDIT: It's worse than we thought; they're everywhere! (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rakghoul)

March, eh? That "One planet a month!" thing didn't last very long.  :awesome_for_real:

Go away, troll.

I'm not sure anyone beyond sky really expected them to live up to their promises of content creation. Even now they are making promises no one actually believes they'll keep but if people are having fun then who cares. What this does tell me though is that if the new content is already going to be centered around max level, then max level content is all you'll be getting from now on.

Well, at least that answers the question of how are they going to make their bosses more interesting than droids and humanoids. On the down side it doesn't look at all like Star Wars in any shape or form.

(also there's quite a t of zombies in this game - Empire Tatooine has zombies as well, although not Rakhghouls).

Republic Tatooine has zombies too, Maledict. Probably the same kind!

Yes, it is great when devs oversell and underdeliver on their titles. We love being shown one thing and then getting another.  :oh_i_see:

The "if people are having fun" part that is a huge qualifier. Things can turn very quickly when expectations aren't well managed.

New content about to be added less than a month after the official release and there are grumbles that the next content patch (potentially with new BG, dungeon and raid) is going to be added 6-8 weeks later?

Don't ever change guys.

Interview with James Ohlen at Rock Paper Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/12/interview-biowares-james-ohlen-on-swtor/) (complete with frothing anti-SWTOR/MMO in general comments) hints at what else is expected in March update:


Personally, if they do actually manage to get all that into the update and release it in March, I really don't care that February is a bit of a dry month for new content. (I don't care anyway but that's for other reasons).

Ohlen also hints at the possibility of something akin to WARs public quests being included at some point.

Yeah, I have no big issue with the first month being dry - but that sounds much more like the amount of content they need in updates to maintain a content centred mmo.

However, adding a necessary snark, who wants to bet against the guild bank being no larger than a player cargo hold?

I'm still not even cap. I got story stuff to do, companion storylines to do since only Jorgan is over 1000 affection, heroics to probably run and hate, and god willing some raids to try out provided more than 2 groups of goons can organize 8-16 people in a guild of like 400ish active players.

Honestly, the quality of the content in this game is so vastly superior than any other MMO I have every played (Tortage in AoC comes closest, but still a distant second) that I couldn't give two shits if they don't release anything for the first 6 months.  I have sooooo much to do still, and all of it is awesome.  I might level slower than average, I have no idea, but there is no dearth of content in this game.  Anyone complaining about a lack of new content in February or even March needs their brains punched.

Fake Edit:  Also, yeah, Rakghouls and zombified things are not exactly new to the canon.  A lot of what I see in this game fits quite well with other canon (Bioware created and otherwise), and an uber nerd like me really appreciates it. 

Hell, I'd settle for a dry spell in content if they literally dedicated an entire major patch to unfucking the engine, backend, and UI.

SWTOR: Rise of the Playable Client

Likewise. Although a lot of the KOTOR stuff needs to be spelled out to me as I've forgotten lots of it. I didn't even connect House Ulgo with Trask Ulgo and Darth Bandon totally slipped my mind.

I was surprised to see the Endar Spire on Taris though - thought it had been entirely vaporized at the beginning of KOTOR.

Well I'm the same, but if they couldn't currently generate content at the rate I would need them to once I am cap, then I'd have serious doubts that they'd be able to do it later.

What kinda planet? If it is another Quesh... there will be blood.  :oh_i_see:

Fuck content, i need macros and basic ui fixes.

The largest selling point for Hero engine is its collaborative tools. You can have 3 ( Random number ) world builders, and 3 quest designers working in the same level file remotely at the same time. Its a wonderious piece of software. Its also, other than audio, why i think you'll see them able to turn out content at a fast pace.

Is access to the latest and shiniest code part of the licensing agreement for it is or are you locked to your current version without dropping a bunch of cash?

AFAIK its part of the core suite ( The tools ). Its one of the ground level features. I don't know if source updates are part of the license. I do know BW has source files.

I was curious if SWTOR was suffering sort of the same problems that games like Vampire: The Masquerade suffered where they were using version 0.shit of the engine (VT:M was literally built on a beta version of source if I recall).

Semi-sorta offtopic, but I'm actually kinda "wow" at their HeroCloud thing.

http://www.heroengine.com/herocloud/

Basically; the engine, tools, and hosting are all free. You get their tech for free, they host your servers for nothing, but when you start selling subs (which they apparently have transaction support for) they take a 30% cut.

Is anyone else in the industry doing this re: middleware?

Yep, this is me. Again, low end system, etc, etc but it's not fun to play right now for me with the performance issues.

I don't see that changing suddenly in the near future. 

:oh_i_see:

Why are you even posting? Either buy the game or shut your fucking yap, you steaming pile of negativity.

Yeah... I'm no fanboi (half my posts are 'what went wrong' after all  :awesome_for_real:) but I still enjoy this game a lot. Their biggest strength is content, so more of it is a Good Thing.

I also agree with Threash/Fabricated/MA that UI and responsiveness fixes need to be happening ASAP, but those aren't issues you can solve in less than 1-2 months even if you have an army of coders working 24/7, so I'm willing to wait until 1.2 (or maybe even 1.3 if there's a really good reason).

The game is fun overall now and I have hope that by its first expansion all of the annoyances will be resolved so that they don't constantly detract from the good stuff.  I'm hoping to finish my sith warrior plot line soon and will then put my alts into hibernation and come back with a vengeance in a year or so.

Of all the mmos I've played and quit this is the only one I can think of where I have made a mental note to be sure to come back at some point in the future.

Isn't that an F13 tradition? To post negatively about something you have no clue about?

No, that's Lakov's tradition.

Which mmo was it that he started a past tense "What went wrong" thread practically on launch day?  Rift?

Oh, I don't either. And I'm fairly convinced the game was shredding my fucking system. I haven't played since a Windows reinstall and what seemed like an imminent hard drive failure no longer exists. So I'm out until later, which is a shame because I do think (as I've maintained since late beta) that there's a good three months of fun in there.

UO

Edit:I played Rift and WAR in beta and on release, they were steaming piles you could see a mile away.  WAR for its ineptitude and Rift for it's sheer blandness, SWTOR I'm still cautiously looking forward to a couple months down the line.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/82533/Futurama_Fry_Looking_Squint.jpg)

I had to go search, I guess it's your thing.

(http://i43.tinypic.com/2dio8wn.png)

 :awesome_for_real: :drill: :uhrr:

This is Star Wars. I want to fight droids and Jedi and Empire type dudes, not fucking zombies.

They are attached to their KOTOR 1 plot and the planet Taris...

Yeah, I can't be too upset about something they're using that was in KotOR 1.

Just posting to say that Kaon Under Seige is pretty awesome and with some minor nerfs/adjustments would be a great example of why I like SWTOR's flashpoints more than most of WoW's recent dungeons.

It's literally Left4Dead in Star Wars; all of the rhakgouls/zombies are based on L4D archetypes. There's hunters that randomly pounce on people, boomers that explode for a lot of damage/knockback when killed, "infected mercenaries" that pull people in with their tow-lines, and female "screamers" that hit like fucking trucks with a huge knockback.

The problem? As usual; way too much trash. Also, Mercs can pretty much indefinitely CC people unless interrupted. Hunters eventually hop off or stop when damaged enough/interrupted but Mercs only stop CCing people when stunned/interrupted. Very fucking annoying.

Also, the "bonus" boss is -ridiculously- overtuned.

Agreed with everything you said. Did you also notice an increased amount of green drops on your way through?  We were getting far more than any other HM.

The bonus boss.  Some oddities we found with it.  There is no enrage timer that we found.  We kited him around the little box in the middle of the room and line of sighted him when we got behind on heals and when the adds spawned so the healer only had to focus on one person. He would occasionally jump up on top but that wasn't too hard to fix with some creative tanking. Those adds that he spawn, I'm not sure how you could beat them w/o 2 cc's.  Hit like a truck if you have more than 1 active.

There's an easy way to beat the bonus boss if you have well-geared dps with a solid rotation. 

If you haven't ran it yet and need some context.

Trash:

Human enemies: Face-tankable, nothing special.

Non-Elite Plaguebringers: AoE, dead.

Hunters (elite): They hit fairly hard (I'm in 4/5 Columi with 1 Tionese, and only have 3 "blue" items left and two at once can get spooky) and will randomly drop aggro and pounce people. The pounce CC is interruptable and I swear also breakable with damage output.

Bloated Plaguebringers (strong): Don't really hit hard, but they explode when killed for a fairly sizable knockback along with a good chunk of damage and a nasty DOT.

Infected Mercs (strong): Don't hit hard, but they will harpoon and CC people basically indefinitely unless interrupted. They're way more annoying despite being pretty squishy because you can get pulls with 2 of these fuckers and other elites which you really should CC over them. Also they love fucking up pulls, because they'll harpoon people immediately when aggroed, which can cause you to get your healer/tank harpooned right off or someone harpooned right next to a patrol.

Screamers (elite): They hit very, very, very hard. They seem to attack pretty slow, and seem to have only one attack. They scream at their target and bash you for gobs of damage (5000-6000 IIRC on my again, fairly geared tank) with a HUGE knockback. They should be CC'd or tanked with your back against a wall/corner if you insist. When it's time to DPS them we had a much easier time chaining our stuns on them while he burned them down.

Actual regular Rhakghouls: Pretty boring really. Even the elites are pretty much "spam whatever". They like to come in huge packs.

Bosses:

Rhakghoul Waves: Easy as hell. Someone hops in the turret. Just rotate it with your mouse and it'll autofire on approaching ghouls. Basically it's just big waves of normal rhakghouls that come from the left or right, with the odd elite/strong spawning in the middle of the group and sometimes normal waves from both sides. The turret has a huge knockback so if people with distance AOE stuns like troopers/sages can buy time for the turret-rider to burn one side then the other. Screamers can be annoying but that's just because knockbacks in general are annoying.

Collosal Rhakghoul: Tank and spank with a pretty easy gimmick. He'll constantly knock the tank down/back, so try to stick to a wall. It'll eventually frenzy and become "armored"; kite it next to one of the conveniently placed explosive barrels and blow it to strip the armor off. He moves really slow during his frenzy for a good reason; he'll rip your tank's head off if he catches him. Still easy though.

Expulser: The "Bonus" boss and fucking annoying to do legit. He's a big security droid. Tank and spank for the first 30%, he'll grapple everyone in and AOE off and on but that's easy enough. At 70% he'll spawn 3 probes near where he starts and go inactive/invulnerable for 30 seconds; these probes pulse for a very damaging AOE (about 3000 damage every 2 seconds or so). Needless to say you must CC at least one, probably 2 of these. You then have that 30 seconds to focus-fire and burn down these probes before the boss goes active again. It sucks, bad.

At 30% he does it again.

The "strategy" that people use right now is to kite him practically halfway back through the instance to a saferoom with friendly NPCs who'll heal/DPS with you, because the probes always spawn in the same place. This lets you simply burn the boss.

Special Trio: 3 Special Rhakghouls, Big medium and small. They do their own things, but they're all pretty ignorable and not CCable. Just set a burn order and follow it, dealing with smaller waves of non-elite adds. We facerolled it.

Still a really fun/atmospheric instance. You get these cool floating "illumination probes" in dark areas that actually project a real flashlight effect in front of you.

It wins points for atmosphere.

The bosses (except the bonus) are just ridiculously easy. The trash is  :ye_gods: hard to tank. It will be that instance where every dps wants to go, and the tanks just want to forget once they get their shit.

Tanking Kaon is easy even with no CC if people just focus-fire and make sure to stand where they won't be blasted into other mob packs. This is as a vanguard however where ranged/AOE aggro is a snap.

Tanking = grab the champion/elite and let the dps deal with the trash while standing on a sorc AE heal. 

Yep.

It kinda astounds me how bad melee-tanking is in TOR.

The going theory on the forums is that if they made JK tanking good, nobody but Fordel would roll a trooper tank.

He'd still have enough to compensate for the rest of the playerbase though.

No one but me pretty much has, more or less. Shadows and Guardians must outnumber Vanguards by like 6:1 or something. For awhile I thought there were lots of Vanguard Tanks as my +aim tanking implants kept selling really really fast. Then I realized I was selling these implants to people with +AIM Tanking Companions instead.  :why_so_serious:


The JK issue in my mind is that they copied the WoW warrior, but forgot that Warriors don't use every single one of their abilities in every situation/role. So JK's are trying to use all three warrior trees worth of abilities at once and it's a giant mess.


The Vanguard is conversely similar to the TBC Prot Paladin (once they gave it actual tanking tools and gear). You start almost every pull with a massive threat lead, your AE threat is almost as good as your single target and your mitigation and 'rotation' are either passive or straightforward, allowing you to focus more on the what and where instead of the how of tanking.

You actually come across other Shadow tanks?  I still get people who don't even know that Shadows have a tanking tree.  Ran into one today who just assumed I was dps and couldn't believe I was a tank.

My problem with the skill abundance is that so many of the good JK ones require your target to be either stunned or incapacitated. Guess which mobs can't be stunned or incapacitated? EVERYTHING YOU TANK!  :awesome_for_real:

Shadow tanks are a dime a dozen, they're all just like you, pretend rogues instead of tanking and spanking.  :why_so_serious:

I do notice that on pulls with tons of stuff hitting you Guardians/Shadows seem to be way squishier than me. It seems like they handle bosses with frenzies and other spike damage a bit better though.

Of course this is just damage-wise. My ability to basically generate threat from pretty much any distance makes keeping aggro easier for mobs/bosses with copious knockbacks, as well as easily picking off incoming adds. Our guardians just seem to have a hell of a time with AoE threat.

The problem (as we found out in Wrath) when you can't do AE tanking, nobody wants you along for the ride. The fact you can survive better on bosses doesn't really mean shit to a group when it takes you 30m longer to slog through the trash to get there.

The one word to describe Vanguard tanking is consistent.

Almost all of our damage bypasses defenses and resistances, almost all of our mitigation is passive and all of our cooldowns are about smoothing out the rough edges.

We don't really have any kind of Burst Damage and we don't have any 'oh shit' buttons or any kind of finesse play or trickery.



So it doesn't really matter what or where we are fighting, we more or less preform the same.

You're just jealous I've gotten a bajillion more champ tokens than you.  :grin:

This is how I plan to tank with my JK.  :why_so_serious:

Undeserved ones!  :why_so_serious:

So many? I have one ability that needs them to be stunned/incapacitated, and one that needs them to be slowed. They're both pure dps moves, they're not really "good". And in any case neither one works on anything above silver.

Yep, two abilities. Both would be high damage / high threat. Given the cooldowns you only have so many viable options as a JK tank if you spec as defense.

Sunder Strike - baseline threat builder / rage building
Cyclone Slash - supposedly the AE tanking move, but its damage is paltry and it doesn't have a threat add
Ripost - when it's up
Force Sweep - I'd like them to add threat to this
Blade Storm - I love this ability talented
Guardian Slash - the cooldown being 15s kinda blows

Then you have hilt strike, the only ability that says it generates high threat, but it's on a 60s cooldown. I have no idea why it's so long.

This is still a peeve of mine.

Because it's a stun, it needs a longer cooldown for PVP. Are you not using regular slash and regular strike? You pretty much need to be using those as filler abilities or your threat is going to be even lower as you won't have the focus to do a move every single time you can.

I didn't mention those because strike is basically the JK version of autoattack, and slash shouldn't have to be used it Guardian slash worked correctly.

Also, just remove the damn stun if it fucks up pvp. It's in the damn tanking tree.

It's concussion blow. The cooldown on it is hardly the problem with our tanking.

Except it's the only ability with actual reference to threat on it. Smartypants.

Sure, which theoretically makes it nice for a bit of threat frontloading. Because hilt strike has extra utility beyond threat, making a change to it that forces it into our regular rotation instead of being there as-needed when we need to stun something is a poor idea.

For sustained threat, tacking extra threat onto sundering strike via a talent would be the way to go (we don't want it to apply to all guardians) - it is part of the core rotation so you're hitting it all the time regardless of the situation.

For AE threat, I'm not sure what the answer is, force sweep already does about as much work as one ability should.

To be fair, I don't think any BH/Trooper AoEs have built in extra threat. We just get like 10 of them and most on short or no cooldown.

This is balanced because JK/SW get lightsabers.   :awesome_for_real:

Troopers/BH have a talent that causes Stockstrike/Rocket Punch to come off CD sometimes when we shield an attack. Needless to say when this decides to proc a lot threat becomes no issue. Stockstrike/Rocket Punch crit pretty much every time with talents and actually do pretty good damage in addition to always applying our DOT.

It's a lot like prot paladin in TBC, a Vanguard tank kills 3 mobs at about the same speed as they kill 1. They don't kill the one terribly fast, but if you can get 3 or more at once it evens out to be pretty fast overall.

I actually get pissy when that talent isn't handing me RPs left and right. Full CD on RP feels like forever after a string of fights with tons of shielding.

More shield rating!

Do not want to talk end game gearing again.  :ye_gods: I won't even try to put shielding on my lvl 49 crafted stuff til they say they've fixed RE rates ("upcoming patch").

I'm probably close to the cap anyway.