Noob questions

[rattran]

Blizz>>>>>>Gault/Mako>>>>>>Torian>>>>>>>>>>>....>>Skadge

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I haven't actually met Blizz yet (my dude hasn't even gotten Torian Bieber yet), but I am totally looking forward to it. 

[koro]

I was sort of dreading Gault due to a bunch of friends and a few guildmates absolutely hating him, but when I finally got him, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he is awesome.

Even when he disagrees with you, his dialogue is still solid gold.

[Ingmar]

It is crazy to me that anyone could hate Gault, yeah.

[Merusk]

Gault was amusing for his dialogue but I hated him as a partner.  Probably because I was a tank and he didn't work well with the melee-centric tank abilities.  Mako or Torian worked very well.

Torian was good as a partner, but meh as a character.  He's Mandalorian, though, so if you've got a thing for their lore folks will enjoy him.  He synergized really well with my tank spec because he had some nice melee AOEs.  Keep things together and keep him upgraded and stuff died quick enough I never missed taking my healbot.

I get your Meh-ness for Mako, Sjofn, because she's the romantic interest and not notable beyond that.  If you're not playing a male and don't want to do the romance she's *generic healer* with a mildly-interesting storyline.

Being a tank I never used Blizz much.  I keep hearing he's awesome but he was outshined by Galt in my on-ship conversations, which were really my only interactions with him.

Skadge just blows.  Abrasive personality and his DPS seemed shitty.  If I had the option to space him I would have done so.

[Ingmar]

Isn't Skadge a tank?

[rattran]

Skadge is a melee tank, and really a terribad one. As a tank, he can't seem to hold aggro and stay alive, set to dps, he does less than Blizz set to tank. Blizz is a ranged tank, which works fine for Healy Mercs.

I was shocked at how much better Khem tanked than Skadge did.

[Ingmar]

Hrm. Skadge's ability set looks pretty much identical to Vik's, and Vik tanked just fine for me. Granted, I had some pretty big presence bonuses by then.

[Zetor]

While we're talking about bad companions, I want to give a shout-out to Lokin, who's so hardcore he doesn't even start with a weapon. I played a healer operative, so I didn't use him in the first place, but 

[eldaec]

Companions of the same type are all near as damnit identical.

If you are seeing differences it is either your imagination, gear, or a bug.

[Ingmar]

If you actually go through companion by companion there are some weird differences.

Melee tanks for example, some of them have an AE ability that does damage and heals them + the PC, where others have a different AE ability that does the same damage but instead applies a 5% damage debuff. Some of them also have a knockback where others don't.

And Xalek is just freaking weird, as he has some things off the ranged tank list and some things off the melee tank list.

[koro]

Yeah, Xalek is technically a ranged tank, but he spends 85% of his time in melee range due to having a lightsaber. The only way other "ranged" tanks stay in actual tanking range is through their charges.

[Fordel]

While we're talking about bad companions, I want to give a shout-out to Lokin, who's so hardcore he doesn't even start with a weapon. I played a healer operative, so I didn't use him in the first place, but 

Lokin is the worst heal companion in the game thanks to his little bit of fluff around his 'condition'.

Seriously, so bad.

[Sjofn]

While we're talking about bad companions, I want to give a shout-out to Lokin, who's so hardcore he doesn't even start with a weapon. I played a healer operative, so I didn't use him in the first place, but  

He is seriously the fucking worst. I also played a healy operative, so it didn't matter for ME, but God. What were they thinking with him?

edit: seriously, eldaec, I agree on any other companion, but Lokin really is worse than anyone else. He doesn't do damage in his heal stance and he cannot heal in his damage stance.

[koro]

Yeah, it's a silly byproduct of when he used to be a tank back in beta.

[Sjofn]

It still boggles my mind that they didn't. Like. Fix it.

[Raguel]

I never noticed a problem with Lokin, but then when I used him I was probably at least 2 levels higher so maybe he never had to heal me much. I hated Kaliyo as a tank but just noticed I didn't have her equipped with a shield. LOL I hope I wasn't playing the whole game like that. Probably why I got owned so hard in Section X though and had to use my juggernaut.

[Ironwood]

This game grows on you.

It's fucking annoying.

[Lantyssa]

I think you got mind worms from that last hooker.

[Ironwood]

Relax, I'm just strangely enjoying the story.

I can see absolutely no interest in any type of 'end game' here.

[Bunk]

I enjoyed the story and would really love to go back and finish it on my Juggernaut. Problem is, last time I tried jumping back in to it my head nearly exploded trying to remember what the hell all the damn buttons did in combat.

Nine levels under cap and I had something like 18 buttons I had to remember the functionality of to do combat passably. Not as in I will have a bit of a hard time, more like "oh shit I'm getting owned by three generic mooks because I can't remember exactly what these six different situation interrupts do".

I think I'll head back to the other SW.

[rattran]

I had the same issue with my 43 Jugg, played a jedi knight to level 20, which got me back into the flow for the juggernaut combat. Sadly, the juggernaut at 43 was so much less fun than the jedi sentinel, that I reshelved him.

[Raguel]

Relax, I'm just strangely enjoying the story.

I can see absolutely no interest in any type of 'end game' here.

This is my feeling exactly, but then I've never cared for mmo end game either

[Merusk]

Relax, I'm just strangely enjoying the story.

I can see absolutely no interest in any type of 'end game' here.

So you're playing a single-player Bioware game with some collaborative MP encounters mixed-in.

No reason you shouldn't be enjoying it, eh?

[Fordel]

He has to maintain his grumpy street cred. 

[Raguel]

Relax, I'm just strangely enjoying the story.

I can see absolutely no interest in any type of 'end game' here.

So you're playing a single-player Bioware game with some collaborative MP encounters mixed-in.

No reason you shouldn't be enjoying it, eh?

Not that I'm Ironwood but...

The main problems I have is that companions side quests are just talky then fade to black stuff, space combat is meh, and the usual kill ten rats stuff. I'd also wish I could use more than one companion since it's rare I'm in a planetside pve group.

[Raguel]

Is legacy stuff worth getting? I hardly ever go to the vendors and I don't think I have any armor kits; I just have the main hand weapon ones.

[Fordel]

The non-orange pieces?

No, not really worth going out of your way for it. If you have kits just lying around, sure, why not, I guess. Sometimes I get them as random crewskill mission rewards, the kits. Otherwise it's a tiny level range you'll outgrow in roughly half a planet each time.


The Orange-Moddable pieces can make some nice dress-up outfits though, if pricey.

[Ironwood]

Relax, I'm just strangely enjoying the story.

I can see absolutely no interest in any type of 'end game' here.

So you're playing a single-player Bioware game with some collaborative MP encounters mixed-in.

No reason you shouldn't be enjoying it, eh?

Odd, isn't it.

I'm really not very sure why this is an online game.  Really.

[Merusk]

My gut says because someone saw the numbers subsription games were making per month and said, "Fuck me, why should we settle for a $50 one-time-fee when we can get triple that every year!" and didn't look any further than that.

[eldaec]

Add in multiplayer FPs, and if they had configured their team to provide $15 worth of DLC to expand the story options each month and I can see how they could have built it as worthy-of-being-online.

But too late for that now. It's 50 levels of bioware followed by an unconnected raid game. Which is all rather unfortunate.

[Sjofn]

This is the most group-friendly-without-being-group-required MMO I've played. Guild Wars 2 kinda fails for me there because there is zero point to being in a group at all (which is fine, really, but it does make it Not For Me when I want to play something with Ingmar).

[Rokal]

This is the most group-friendly-without-being-group-required MMO I've played. Guild Wars 2 kinda fails for me there because there is zero point to being in a group at all (which is fine, really, but it does make it Not For Me when I want to play something with Ingmar).

I agree with this, it's the only MMO I've played in the last 10 years where the leveling content was actually better with a group instead of worse. The game is pretty unremarkable alone and I haven't progressed any given solo character past ~20. It makes sense as a multiplayer game but not necessarily an MMO. If they had decided to make a co-op RPG instead of an MMO, we most certainly would have gotten a game with a much smaller scale though. $200+ million budgets don't happen for games you only expect people to pay $60 for.

[eldaec]

Agree with the swtor bit. Though it is very much preestablished gaming group multiplayer rather than mmo multiplayer.

Wouldn't say there us no point grouping in gw2 though. You would pretty much roflstomp everything in a coordinated duo, and gw2 at least does level matching all the time everywhere.

[Ingmar]

GW2 PVE would have to be worth doing at all to be worth doing in a duo, though.