Patch Notes

[Fordel]

Nebu, that's just horse shit. "The Class imbalances endeared me to them." Yea, remember the good times of chain stunning and being 2 shot by zerkers/savages/castersofanykind 



Ilum's problems are two fold. One there are population and participation issues all around, this is a problem that has plagued every PvP game that has ever existed and is not a trivial one to fix.



The second is there are no "keep doors". Or more specifically, there is nothing for you to do there if you can't control the middle and/or get decent trades going every fight. If you can't get kills and you can't farm crates, the zone is useless. If you've already gotten your 30 kills/crates for the day, the zone is also useless. There's no secondary reason to be there, at all, ever. No quests, no farming nodes, no mobs, not even little frontier forts that you and your 3 buddies can steal and defend from the enemy zerg.

Nothing.

[Ingmar]

Yeah, that's why I specifically mentioned the reward and objective structure. If there's no reason to be there other than your daily, then participation will be limited to people who need to finish their daily. A server-wide reward structure of some kind would presumably drive more participation, like say Darkness Falls access did in DAOC (although that might not be the best option in a specific sense.)

[Lakov_Sanite]

Oh sky....


My point is that diku pvp is broken and the model that is used(converting pve characters and abilities directly or semi-directly to pvp) is flawed and is never going to be "done right" yes it'll come close, there's things developers can do to make it more fun than slamming your head into a brick wall.  As soon as you add things like "some people have items, some don't" then it's game over.

Dev teams have spent hundreds of millions in money, thousands of man hours and over a decade trying to get diku pvp 'right' and they have at best streamlined the suckage.  Isn't it about time to call it a day on this model of pvp? there's other ways to put players vs one another.

[Threash]

"At launch" is a completely meaningless metric to measure games by.  It's never going to mean a god damn thing to anyone.

[FieryBalrog]

Ilum is the best "end game PvP at launch" in any DIKU? (unless we're talking about BGs here?)

The 1.0 Ilum where people yell at you for killing enemies, or the 1.1 Ilum that resulted in a full day of spawn-camped Republicans unable to leave the planet?

Is this like a zen paradox definition of best or something

[Shatter]

This is the first MMO Ive played where PvP end game pushed me straight into making alts, yup its that good :P

[caladein]

Ilum is the best "end game PvP at launch" in any DIKU? (unless we're talking about BGs here?)

The original comment wasn't exclusive to Ilum.

[Mrbloodworth]

No MMO has ever launched with a truly functional PVP endgame

Planetside.




 

[Falconeer]

Sometimes someone in this thread seems to mix up something I said. I think that PvP is not bad in this game.

What is terrible is the implementation of open pvp. As someone else has been very efficiently been able to simplify:

1.0 Ilum where people yell at you for killing enemies
1.1 Ilum that resulted in a full day of spawn-camped Republicans

This is the problem.

PvP in SWTOR is ok in Warzones.
But the open world (Ilum) is a terrible mess.

To say it was functional at launch it's misleading in my opinion, and biased. Because it doesn't take much to make any arena based deathmatch/CTF-like PvP work. Counterstrike, Unreal, Rift, Team Fortress, SWTOR. They all work. You can't do arenas wrong, not anymore. So that's really not an achievement, and as someone else said, Rift just did it "before".

[Lantyssa]

I don't know why they didn't just make Jedi Knight: The Old Republic for their PvP bits.  Would have been 1000 times better and made more sense.

Then again, I'm still waiting for my Jedi Knight MMO...

[Evildrider]

It would have only been good if Raven made the game.

[Sky]

GZ blog post:

Hi everyone,

Massively Multiplayer Online games are built around living, breathing worlds that are always evolving, and Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ is no different. In our upcoming Game Update 1.2, we’ll be introducing a wide assortment of new features and content, while also introducing a number of improvements and changes to the in-game economy.

As we work to create a more player-driven economy, you can expect significant improvements to Crew skills, and an extension of Crew skill gameplay, such as item creation and research, into the Elder-Game content. You’ll also see new items brought into the game, including new schematics, Legacy items, a new tier of Player vs Player and Player vs Environment weapons and armor, Legacy items, new schematics, and the ability to extract base-mods from purple items, as well as many other changes and improvements.

Weekly patch 1.1.5 (which is now on the Public Test Server) implements a number of changes in preparation of the upcoming Game Update, including the much requested removal of Light Side / Dark Side requirements on color crystals.

As it is expected when large scale changes are made to an economic system, enterprising players often find interesting opportunities to benefit from their knowledge about the changes beforehand (for example by studying test server patch notes).

With patch 1.1.5, we’ve decided to embrace these economic entrepreneurs and even go a step further:

By publishing a series of rumors and stories that are coming in across both the Imperial and Republic news wires, we are providing all of you with advance knowledge about some of the things to come in the near future…

Korrealis Corporation, a family-owned personal transportation company based out of Balmorra, has announced that, in response to a sharp increase in customer complaints, all production of the ‘Sovereign’, ‘Prince’, 'Baron' and 'Commander' speeder lines has been halted indefinitely. This announcement comes on the heels of the rumor that Tirsa Industrial Consortium has quietly ceased production of their less than successful 'Prime' model, which faced similar blowback.

Vehicle Vendors across the galaxy have been advised to clear out any remaining stock of these models, and many Vendors have begun offering steep discounts to entice potential customers. Collectors and investors may want to take note that the previous limitations governing the resale of some vehicles seem to have been lifted and are encouraged to use the opportunity to purchase these legacy vehicles while they are still available.

After several months of deliberation, the Republic Senate's Committee on Transportation and Public Safety has passed new regulations that, among other things, adjust the cost of speeder licenses. Once these regulations are signed by the Supreme Chancellor in the coming weeks, prices for Tier I and Tier II speeder licenses across the galaxy are expected to see a significant decline. To help offset the loss of revenue generated by these licenses, taxes on all models of Tier III speeders will be significantly increased once the new regulation takes effect.

Critics claim that the resolution will only add to the serious strain on the Republic’s finances, while others see this as a vain attempt to keep on pace with the Imperial Transportation Authority, which recently passed a similar law.

It’s been reported that Operatives of the Republic Strategic Intelligence Service have recovered several new variations of color crystal prototypes during a daring raid on a cutting edge Imperial Science Bureau outpost on Ilum. Among the items recovered are a number of rare, purple-hued color crystals, usually exclusive to Imperial-held worlds.

Republic scientists are confident that they will be able to reverse-engineer and potentially replicate the captured Imperial technology, including the color crystals, in a matter of weeks. While most of the prototypes are still being analyzed, it has been confirmed that the Imperial Science Bureau's "Project Expertise" at the Ilum outpost scored a major breakthrough in the crystal cutting process. While information on the new technology has been kept tightly guarded, we know that the process can create several variants of existing crystal colors which improve the crystal’s natural properties.

The seizure of this technology by the Strategic Intelligence Service has led to a race between the Sith Empire and Galactic Republic to mass produce the crystals. Advance shipments of these crystals have already been dispatched to their respective fleets for field testing, and both sides say that once they have cleared any safety concerns, and have finalized a safe and efficient means of mass distribution, the crystals will become available.

In related news, a very limited number of pure white color crystals have been recovered by a Hutt-sponsored expedition into uncharted space. As of today, small stocks of these extremely rare and expensive crystals have started to appear in Vendor stocks at the primary Imperial and Republic transportation hubs. With no new shipments expected for several months, those wealthy enough to afford these crystals may find themselves in possession of a highly sought-after collectable.

Georg Zoeller
Principal Lead Combat Designer

Makes me pretty bummed Komoto only has $45k to his name, sounds like time to stock up on a few things. And I'll totally miss out on the crystals because I didn't take slicing early on or grind the game hardcore. Ah, well. Such things mmo is made from.

[Sjofn]

* Sjofn buys all the purple crystals

[Sky]

I saw a cool blue saber with a black core the other day.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I saw that too, I liked it much better than the hideous black/yellow preorder one that made my lightsaber look like a vibrosword.

[Ingmar]

Those are the top level Republic pvp sabers I think.

[Fordel]

Yep, Battlemaster weapons.

[01101010]

That post was actually pretty good for a slimy RPer blog.  (I secretly enjoyed reading it). So we can buy white crystals from vendors for a limited period of time. Guess that is a yay for sabre users, a meh for everyone else? Lots of poor force users incoming!

Anyone want to bet those white crystals are going to be BoP? If not, I am going to hoard as many as I can... then unsub. 

[Sjofn]

White might look cool coming out of a blaster too, it's hard to say. I'm just pleased my blaster people can have red bolts if they want (although I am developing a fondness for blue bolts).

[01101010]

White might look cool coming out of a blaster too, it's hard to say. I'm just pleased my blaster people can have red bolts if they want (although I am developing a fondness for blue bolts).

I love the blue bolts. I pretend they are shards of ice. I am the frost spec BH. 

[Sky]

When I was duoing with Furi, sometimes his Merc's dual blaster fire of red and blue turned purple to my weary eyes. It was pretty cool.

[Minvaren]

125K for a purple crystal, 1 to 2.5mil for the white crystals.  250k for the schematics for magenta crystals.

Bit pricey for me - my new L50 is all but broke from training.   

[Sky]

Yeah, looks like I've got to dust off Komoto and make some money before 1.2 launches. 45k on him.

[Nebu]

Yeah, looks like I've got to dust off Komoto and make some money before 1.2 launches. 45k on him.

Ilum dailies = 100k creds daily.  Fortunately, I don't care what color I pew pew on my Operative and sniper.  My sorc, guardian, and shadow may enjoy some color though... damn you Bioware!

[eldaec]

It would have only been good if Raven made the game.

Depends on your view of jumping puzzles.

[Sky]

Ilum dailies = 100k creds daily. 

Ouch. Maybe not.

[Minvaren]

Anyone else having zone transition delays after the patch this morning?

Lag getting into the fleets, lag getting into spaaaaace (resulting in being out of sync with usual rails position and music), and so forth.

(edit - huh, fine this evening, must have just been a transient thing)

[Fordel]

I had some really bad lag in a huttball match tonight, but otherwise I've been fine.

[Shatter]

I saw no difference yesterday then any other day.  

On a different topic I started a Sentinel last week, level 24 now and holy shit it's night and day compared to a scoundrel.  DPS is high, decent survivability + 2 leaps to target combined with force choke makes the class really strong and fun.  I've topped damage in most warzones I've played and eveling is so much easier cause I roll groups of mobs in a matter of seconds.  This seems like a really strong class to me and from what I read in 1.2 they got virtually no nerfs and in fact a slight buff which I think is pretty interesting because Sentinel definitely isnt hurting any from what I can tell. 

[El Gallo]

The term "elder game" makes me want to vomit.

[Fabricated]

The problem with sentinels is that there are many many raid fights that hate the shit out of melee DPS.

Bonetrasher has a major cleave that melee has to care about where as ranged need to worry about it far less if they stay spread out and at max distance.
Jarg/Sorno have melee-range AOEs.
Soa's lightning balls are a bigger deal for melee since they need to get the hell out of the way faster so they don't drag it through the group.
Exterminator has a stun/swipe specifically for fucking up melee.
Fabricator's bombs on hardmode are brutal and melee have to get the fuck out or they risk wiping the raid.
On Karagga, ranged only need to avoid the gravity grenade things, melee need to make sure they're right at his side or they get hit by missiles or fire.

Granted sentinel DPS output is pretty ridiculous. We ran hardmore Karagga's last night with 3 tanks (myself included) and all our "guards" went to sentinels to keep them from catching us in threat.

[Abelian75]

The term "elder game" makes me want to vomit.

100% agree.

[Minvaren]

Meh.  Patcher crashed during today's patch for some reason, and is now downloading 12GB of data to repair itself...  

(edit : restarted patcher and it patched right up?)

[cironian]

Yeah, the melee design is somewhat broken once you get high enough in level. It would be fine for melee characters to have all those extra positioning headaches if there were special benefits only available for melee characters as well. As it is, there are none. DPS is the same, and utility powers are also spread evenly between melee and ranged chars. I'm not saying melee is weaker than ranged, just that it is more of a bother for the same effect.

The only arguable real bonus is that melee is supposed to generate more threat per point of damage, which is nice for tanks but kind of counterproductive for melee DPS chars.

[Lantyssa]

(edit : restarted patcher and it patched right up?)

Helms have been fixed to work with color customization.  Unfortunately they've all had their schemes reversed from what I want.

The only arguable real bonus is that melee is supposed to generate more threat per point of damage, which is nice for tanks but kind of counterproductive for melee DPS chars.

Can Guardians compete with Troopers yet?