Item Modifying and You: End-Game Gear Change

[Sjofn]

The most important answer we need is - are there decent light armour pants for Sith Assassins to wear that can be modded so they don't end up running around the place in a skirt all the time?

This is important because god DAMN those robes/dresses look terrible.

Man, I could not possibly disagree more. SWTOR is like the first game where I LIKE the robes.

[tmp]

It's the horrible "a simple tube, magically shrinking and expanding to match the leg animation" effect like in 10+ year old games that gets me :/

[Sjofn]

All my robes flared plenty when they were at rest? Maybe they look shittier on ladies, I dunno, but all my dudes looked perfectly normal. As normal as dudes in robes can look, anyway.

[tmp]

I'm going by how it looks on a guy, in their preview page: http://www.swtor.com/info/holonet/classes/jedi-consular

i dunno, it's just... bad. You have the cape react to movement and all, but the robe just stays welded to the limbs, completely artificial and not how you'd expect it to behave during such actions. There's no splits or anything in the design either, it just all stretches and shrinks like some sort of weird spandex.

[Sky]

You can do operations in multiple sessions? That's cool. I haven't raided since EQ2, for Rift expert dungeons and raid rifts/events we just powered through.

[Ingmar]

That's the assumption (how it works in WoW, so probably a safe assumption...)

[Sjofn]

When he stands, his robe barely compresses at all. When my consular was just standing around doing nothing, the robe was still about as flared as it gets when he's fighting. No, it's not perfect, but it's not nearly as bad as I've seen, which is why I usually hate robes.


EDIT: Looking at the lady inquisitor's page, though, yes, it looks way worse on the women.

[Ingmar]

I think it is the way it bends and follows the knee/lower leg (especially in back) that makes it irritating.

[Fordel]

That's the assumption (how it works in WoW, so probably a safe assumption...)

There's a whole enormous UI page devoted to dungeon and raid lockouts for you and anyone you are grouped with and anyone in the guild.

[tmp]

So it looks different in the game than in that preview? I was avoiding the game footage so i wouldn't spoil too much stuff for myself, so wouldn't know... gonna see what it's like after launch then, maybe it's not as bad.

Still, prefer the pants. They had them in KoTOR and it was fine there, hoping SWTOR has at least some as well.

edit: and Ingmar could be right about the leg bend thing -- that's what makes it most obvious to me it's just lazily animated tube mesh.

[Lantyssa]

Having read the full thing, and having a lot of experience with the mod system, I can say this will be fine.  You can go with the dropped piece, or you can extract some of the mods and get the rest through Operations.  It'll take a little more work to get a custom piece fully upgraded, but on the other hand you can strip unneeded and unwanted pieces for mods to put in other gear.

Having orange recipes drop through Underworld Trading is awesome.

It receives my seal of approval.  From someone who has been pretty critical of the game.

They can't do a class breakdown because there are already thousands of mods.  There are green, blue, and purple versions of each rank.  Any given rank has several variants for different primary stats.  There will be... plenty.

It's like this.   Armor mods just had a simple "rating" and you could put them in ANY piece of armor to get full stats.   Which means you could get an entire suit of raid gear probably really fast since every single piece of gear that dropped would be equivalent to a piece you needed.

Every mod has a rating.  The item becomes the level of the highest mod.  (Three or four depending upon item, potentially more with a critical craft success.  Dunno if orange items gain this benefit.)  The armor mods just give the item... armor.

[Sjofn]

edit: and Ingmar could be right about the leg bend thing -- that's what makes it most obvious to me it's just lazily animated tube mesh.

On the consular at least, in addition to your robe, you often have a butt-cape, so it's pretty easy to tune out completely (plus I think there are indeed pants options too). Unless you make a habit of watching yourself fight from the side or something, I guess.

[Fordel]

You silly people and your classes with robes!

[Draegan]

Game is not even released yet and I am already getting a bitter taste in my mouth.  

Let me guess what's next, new armor models with bigger shoulders!

edit: spelling/proper space bar use.

How do you get through your daily life without just cutting yourself?

[Draegan]

 I've hear the the lowest level difficulty ratings are very easy, and I can quote the end-game dev that each operation should take 2-4 hours to clear on easy mode.

4 hours isn't what I'd call casual.

It's the same length as a football game + the run to the store to get some beer.  That's pretty casual to me.

Edit:
Yeah, it's a lock out system.  You ahve 7 days to do those 4 hours.  And there are only like 5? 6? bosses per operation.

[01101010]

Game is not even released yet and I am already getting a bitter taste in my mouth.  

Let me guess what's next, new armor models with bigger shoulders!

edit: spelling/proper space bar use.

How do you get through your daily life without just cutting yourself?

 

Really man?

[Draegan]

Game is not even released yet and I am already getting a bitter taste in my mouth.  

Let me guess what's next, new armor models with bigger shoulders!

edit: spelling/proper space bar use.

How do you get through your daily life without just cutting yourself?

 

Really man?

You're the one getting a bitter taste in your mouth because you can't de-mod every part of raid-loot that you're most likely not even going to attempt to get.

[Sky]

It's the same length as a football game + the run to the store to get some beer.  That's pretty casual to me.

Edit:
Yeah, it's a lock out system.  You ahve 7 days to do those 4 hours.  And there are only like 5? 6? bosses per operation.

I like that you can do them over a couple nights, that's really good news :)

I'll still stick to my point about long multiplayer sessions, though. Would a raid put up with me taking 15 minutes to run to the store for more beer? Would a football crowd coordinate bathroom trips or pause the game every time someone leaves the room? How will my dps meter look if I'm eating wings through the first two bosses?

 

[Furiously]

How will my dps meter look if I'm eating wings through the first two bosses?

 

Saucy.

[Maledict]

All my robes flared plenty when they were at rest? Maybe they look shittier on ladies, I dunno, but all my dudes looked perfectly normal. As normal as dudes in robes can look, anyway.

I wouldn't mind if they were robes - but they aren't . For some reason in MMOs robes have become skirts. Robes are a one piece item like Obi-wan wore in the original film. What we have are skirts - and very badly animated ones at that. Looks more like a Victorian school teachers dress thana robe.

[Amaron]

Whose doing that in one sitting though?

Getting the exact same group to show up twice a week is an exercise in futility for most people.   I am encouraged that they say the lockouts are flexible though.   If that holds true for hard modes then they'll be one step ahead of WoW.

[Fordel]

Who needs the exact same group every day? Why are we discussing raid lockouts here? I'm confused.

[Amaron]

Who needs the exact same group every day?

Try getting casuals to do harder bosses if they have to give up their loot chances on the easier ones.   Basically in some groups you can't get anyone to come if the easy bosses are already dead. 

[Azuredream]

I don't think that's a problem as long as what Draegan said about it being very easy is accurate. I'd love for the easy mode to be so easy that a full group of competent people come out of it saying "what the fuck was that?" and move on to the higher difficulty modes.

[Merusk]

I'll still stick to my point about long multiplayer sessions, though. Would a raid put up with me taking 15 minutes to run to the store for more beer? Would a football crowd coordinate bathroom trips or pause the game every time someone leaves the room? How will my dps meter look if I'm eating wings through the first two bosses?

 

We've had this discussion before. It's a team sport, or a band gig to get to something you'll relate to better.  How would you feel if the drummer were doing that in the middle of a practice session or gig? 

[eldaec]

I'm pretty sure Sky's point is that for exactly that reason, raids should not be 4 hours long.

[Bunk]

Big post on the official forums explaining all the changes to the modding system. Highlights seem to be that they made "moddable" items a completely seperate color, and made mods removeable. They also explain the changes to Artifact gear and why (keep people from just farming the first boss never needing to fight through to the end boss).

[Draegan]

It's the same length as a football game + the run to the store to get some beer.  That's pretty casual to me.

Edit:
Yeah, it's a lock out system.  You ahve 7 days to do those 4 hours.  And there are only like 5? 6? bosses per operation.

I like that you can do them over a couple nights, that's really good news :)

I'll still stick to my point about long multiplayer sessions, though. Would a raid put up with me taking 15 minutes to run to the store for more beer? Would a football crowd coordinate bathroom trips or pause the game every time someone leaves the room? How will my dps meter look if I'm eating wings through the first two bosses?

 

Depends on your friends!  I've been in plenty of raids where we take 10-20 minute breaks for various reasons.

[luckton]

Reposting wall of text from two pages ago

[Draegan]

I'm pretty sure Sky's point is that for exactly that reason, raids should not be 4 hours long.

Why is four hours too long for something that is supposed to be weekly content?

[tmp]

I'm pretty sure Sky's point is that for exactly that reason, raids should not be 4 hours long.

Though since these raids are effectively divided into discrete smaller chunks (by including multiple bosses/objectives tackled one by one) and can be paused/resumed on each such 'checkpoint' doesn't that mean these raids only last 4 hours in single sitting if you want them to? Otherwise easily becoming 30-60 minute long bits if that's more to your liking?

[Amaron]

Does anyone know how they are going to do lockouts for harder difficulty content?  If it's a per boss thing I could not care less about the length of the raid.

[Bunk]

Reposting wall of text from two pages ago

Apparently I assumed that I had read the thread through yesterday when clearly I hadn't. Also, I blame it on two pages of debating the bendiness of robes.

[eldaec]

I'm pretty sure Sky's point is that for exactly that reason, raids should not be 4 hours long.

Though since these raids are effectively divided into discrete smaller chunks (by including multiple bosses/objectives tackled one by one) and can be paused/resumed on each such 'checkpoint' doesn't that mean these raids only last 4 hours in single sitting if you want them to? Otherwise easily becoming 30-60 minute long bits if that's more to your liking?

I guess the key is what does "paused" mean.

If they mean the raid leader can form up another group and carry on whenever then sure, that seems reasonable.

If they mean like CoX where no new members can join once the team starts and once in noone can run another mission of any sort until they drop out, then clearly that isn't much use.

I assume it actually sits between the two?

[tmp]

I assume it mimics WoW