Pre-release thread discussion

[01101010]

Can someone confirm whether any of the higher flashpoints are like the Esseles/Black Talon?

I did Hammer Station and it had pretty much a single RP moment; the whole flashpoint however is way shorter and far less trash filled than Eselles/Talon. Rather than RP it has a bunch of little stuff you can do in the instance with gathering skills to bypass areas or unlock more content; like using scavenging to fix a drill to knock out a wall or using bioanalysis to turn off poison gas. You get a non-dialog RP thing towards the end where you either sabatogue parts of the station to explode and kill a mess of the badguys and their grunt workers indecriminately to get by, or just mess up their security...that's about it for light/dark in that. A later flashpoint I saw played beginning to end had about as much RP as Black Talon/Esseles however.

I also did Athiss but I was only able to get one boss in due to bugs. There was another non-dialog RP thing right after the first boss that made no sense however from the republic side if you chose dark side. It literally might as well have been "kick a puppy" because you get no tangible benefit from being a dick, even RPwise.

I liked Hammer Station. I thought the use of crafting skills to bypass trash mobs was pretty interesting. Even more so when you bypass stuff the first time, but have no one with skills to repeat that so you end up going through the trash. Also liked the ramp up in difficulty from BT. Sadly, it was way short.

This was also the first instance where I fould out that rockets and my death from above BH skill have AoE much larger that I originially thought. Nothing like breaking CC from the sorc and having them bitch at you. 

[luckton]

...the use of crafting skills to bypass trash mobs...

Sadly, it was way short.

Working as intended?

[Mosesandstick]

I thought Hammer Station was really disappointing, standard dungeon fair with obtuse mechanics (unless youre a MMORPG veteran). Calling it a flashpoint seems like a bit of a stretch if Esseles/Talon are supposed to be the standard. I think I was also annoyed by the difficulty in getting a group together, and the travelling from zone to zone is really a pain.

[01101010]

...the use of crafting skills to bypass trash mobs...

Sadly, it was way short.

Working as intended?

I should clarify. Even tearing through the entire crawl and killing all of the trash, it was still short. And the bug with no loot on the end boss was filled with sorrow and gnashing of teeth.

[Fabricated]

umm, there's no armor on that chest?

other than that it's a cool system, does it have to be an epic chest/pants to have all the important sockets or do rare ones work too?

Pretty much the main distinguishing factor of blue gear that makes it better than green gear is that it has modification slots. Yeah, the base stats are always better, but the real difference is the mod slots.

I had my companion wearing my old blue-quality armor from the end of the starting area because with mods it was still way better than the much higher level greens I was making/finding. Well, ignoring armor.

I have no idea if it's because of the beta or if it's going to be like that in release, but all gear that had mod slots came with mods already in it. You could change them out for better ones but all the armor/weapons I had came with plenty good enough modifications.

[Wolf]

are mods straight gems from wow, ie - if you stick them in an item you can only replace & destroy them?

[luckton]

are mods straight gems from wow, ie - if you stick them in an item you can only replace & destroy them?

Replacing will destroy, but SWTOR gives a finger to WoW by allowing you to remove and keep implanted mods for a small credit charge if you want to save a mod for something else.

[murdoc]

I thought Hammer Station was really disappointing, standard dungeon fair with obtuse mechanics (unless youre a MMORPG veteran). Calling it a flashpoint seems like a bit of a stretch if Esseles/Talon are supposed to be the standard.

My small group found Hammer Station pretty disappointing too. The crafting skill use to bypass trash mobs was a nice addition, but it lacked the story and involvement we found we had with Black Talon.  HS had more varied and difficult fights, especially with the boss mobs and it required CC - where BT didn't whatsoever. Not getting any sort of loot from the final guy was awesome, too.  

[Wolf]

are mods straight gems from wow, ie - if you stick them in an item you can only replace & destroy them?

Replacing will destroy, but SWTOR gives a finger to WoW by allowing you to remove and keep implanted mods for a small credit charge if you want to save a mod for something else.

Do you just do it anywhere or does it have to be at a special place? Reseting my talents took 10 minutes of banging my head against the wall and finally asking in trade. Why copy a game completely and just change that little bit that makes no sense? Different vendor, really?

[Jherad]

are mods straight gems from wow, ie - if you stick them in an item you can only replace & destroy them?

Replacing will destroy, but SWTOR gives a finger to WoW by allowing you to remove and keep implanted mods for a small credit charge if you want to save a mod for something else.

Huh. How do you do that? (edit: The removing part)

If you can truly keep re-modding old armour through any level I'll be overjoyed as this will really help in the looks department. Did anyone check out the raid gear NPCs? The armour looks... Appalling. WoW-epic-shoulders syndrome.

Also, did anyone find the Imp NPC you're supposed to give companion gift parts to in order to have them assembled?

[Mrbloodworth]

Just drag it out. Pay the fee.

[luckton]

I can understand the different vendor thing for skill resets.  If they intend to have high costs of changing talents/ACs, it gives them the cop-out of "you deliberately walked over to the other NPC who's sole purpose is to mind wipe you.  We're not refunding shit."

[Amaron]

The mods are what give the item armor.   Not sure why Torhead isn't listing that stat.   You can change mods and pull them out anywhere.

[Sky]

http://torwars.com/2011/11/28/video-swtor-ui-tips-healing-frames-focus-target/

Not the mouse-over thing people seem to want, but a couple good tips for healers with the existing UI.

[01101010]

http://torwars.com/2011/11/28/video-swtor-ui-tips-healing-frames-focus-target/

Not the mouse-over thing people seem to want, but a couple good tips for healers with the existing UI.

That focus target thing is nice. I tried fucking with that on my merc this weekend, but really didn't grasp how it works. Now I get it. Good link.

sidenote: This guy sounds a lot like the same guy that did the tutorial on HealBot.

[kaid]

Okay that is a slick focus implementation I am likely going to wind up a healing trooper would be nice to have good ability to still shoot some fools while being able to easily heal the main tank.

[Paelos]

Does anybody have a good link to the crew skills and what they all do, as well as which ones are interconnected? Pro/con, etc? I'm struggling with that, given there is so little information in the actual game. Also, are they respeccable?

[Amaron]

Does anybody have a good link to the crew skills and what they all do, as well as which ones are interconnected? Pro/con, etc? I'm struggling with that, given there is so little information in the actual game. Also, are they respeccable?

I had a picture with lines and everything but it led me wrong in game.   I'd say just open up the lore entry because it tells you which ones go together at the bottom.   They are easy to respec as you just click on the X to delete them.  It's maybe a bit tooo easy actually.

[Thrawn]

I had a picture with lines and everything but it led me wrong in game.  

Ditto, I found a nice looking picture that linked the crafting skills on the left to the crew skills on the right.  Find out after a while that one of my crew skills is completely useless for my crafting skill and I need a different skill to get the other half of my crafting materials I was usually missing.

They are respeccable very easily though.

[luckton]

Does anybody have a good link to the crew skills and what they all do, as well as which ones are interconnected?

So glad I spent my time putting together a useful link thread and got the honor of having it stickied 

[Paelos]

Does anybody have a good link to the crew skills and what they all do, as well as which ones are interconnected?

So glad I spent my time putting together a useful link thread and got the honor of having it stickied 

Oh yeah, there it is. Tbh, stickies get ignored all the time. Schild just likes them for some reason.

[Sky]

The crew skills image is out of date. My synthweaving used archeology (for regular crystals) and underworld trading (for metals to make blue items) this past weekend.

[Rendakor]

Just use the codex. Find the profession that makes the type of items you want to make (weapons, armor, whatever), then at the bottom it tells you which two other professions to take with it.

[Morfiend]

Google Doc Spread Sheet in Crew Skills. I didnt make this. I found it on Reddit.

[kildorn]

http://torwars.com/2011/11/28/video-swtor-ui-tips-healing-frames-focus-target/

Not the mouse-over thing people seem to want, but a couple good tips for healers with the existing UI.

That focus target thing is nice. I tried fucking with that on my merc this weekend, but really didn't grasp how it works. Now I get it. Good link.

sidenote: This guy sounds a lot like the same guy that did the tutorial on HealBot.

Wait wait wait. That operations frame thing. It's slick. It's also MOVABLE. Why the fuck isn't the chat window mobile if the UI supports the concept of unlocking and moving shit around? :(

[kildorn]

That is highly entertaining coming from you, Mr. "Why are we killing these raid bosses? I didn't read any of my quests."

Mostly theme wise! Some of them made sense, the only one I think I actually asked about was Mr Blue Dragon who was apparently explained in a book or something. But at the time it was very much "look, just go through this portal and kill the thing on the other side. DON'T ASK WHY HE'S RIGHT BELOW US ALL AND WE AREN'T DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT OKAY?"

Actually, I can't remember the reason for going to Uld either. We were fighting a big bad lich king across the land, and for some reason decided to go pick a fight with an ancient god or something to save the world?

[Paelos]

Uldaman was about Old Gods. There's always room for Old Gods. They are the Jello of WoW.

The worst one was ToC. We're on our way to kill the Lich King so we decide to set up a Ren-Faire?

[DraconianOne]

Does anybody have a good link to the crew skills and what they all do, as well as which ones are interconnected? Pro/con, etc? I'm struggling with that, given there is so little information in the actual game. Also, are they respeccable?

I had a picture with lines and everything but it led me wrong in game.   I'd say just open up the lore entry because it tells you which ones go together at the bottom.   They are easy to respec as you just click on the X to delete them.  It's maybe a bit tooo easy actually.

I think - but can't obviously check - that you can't delete them prior to getting a companion. I tested going to Carrick Station at level 2 or something and learning some skills and found that interacting with each trainer earns a codex entry and 450xp - which is easily enough to go from level 2 to 4 in a minute or so. But if you learn a crafting skill, you won't be able to interact with any of the other crafting trainers, only gathering/mission trainers so talk to all of them first for the XP boost.

[DraconianOne]

Wait wait wait. That operations frame thing. It's slick. It's also MOVABLE. Why the fuck isn't the chat window mobile if the UI supports the concept of unlocking and moving shit around? :(

The chat window is mobile (and possibly resizable) but because none of the rest of the interface is, there's not many places to put it. I moved mine to the bottom left and then found it obscured my holocommunicator thing.

[kildorn]

Wait wait wait. That operations frame thing. It's slick. It's also MOVABLE. Why the fuck isn't the chat window mobile if the UI supports the concept of unlocking and moving shit around? :(

The chat window is mobile (and possibly resizable) but because none of the rest of the interface is, there's not many places to put it. I moved mine to the bottom left and then found it obscured my holocommunicator thing.

I feel like I'm missing some small patch somewhere that just flags the whole damned thing mobile. I wound up just closing the chat window all the time, since it didn't have any form of combat log for me to look at in this build.

But that also makes me go "so I can move the raid frames.. but the only place to put them is the middle of the UI?

I do like the focus modifier key though. That's nice.

[Sky]

But if you learn a crafting skill, you won't be able to interact with any of the other crafting trainers, only gathering/mission trainers so talk to all of them first for the XP boost.

Just cancel out the popup. You'll get the xp and lore update but won't learn the skill. Glad I did because that's how I learned underworld trading now supports synthweaving, which allowed me to get components for my blue gear. Seemed to be pretty tough to get those, too. T7 failed about 80% and only brought back 2 and then 3 of the metal (4 for the item), 6 minutes missions for the teen tier.

[Pezzle]

If you accidentally learn the wrong skill you can open the companions window and remove it.   

[Wolf]

So no beta. Installing KotOR and ordered the blu-rays earlier today. I hate you SWTOR.

[Rasix]

Didn't you get one of the 8 million codes out there?

[Wolf]

I did, but wasn't that for the weekend only? No servers now anyway.

Kotor is unplayable :( Found a widescreen patch but the game crashed 3 times in 20 minutes :(