Patch 1.3

[Fordel]

This is a good summary of what is going down in general: http://dulfy.net/2012/06/06/consolidated-patch-1-3-info/

[Lantyssa]

From the interview about new playable species:

The Cathar is the first one, and what we’re going to start doing is really looking at how much interest there is in species. The Cathar will be the first we’re rolling out as they’ve always been popular. We have the stuff, and we know we wanted to do them. After that the hope is if people say “Oh yeah, this is really exciting here. We want to do this.” Then it becomes open to the community and we’ll say, “Hey, ok folks, what do you really want?” I think it’ll be an interesting plan. I think it’ll be really interesting to put the negatives right out there for people to see. Understand that if you demand a species that does not speak English and is made out of Jello, these are going to be the problems that it brings to you. And if people say “that’s what we want more than anything else,” then at this point it is community power.

Yay on Cathar.  Bets on there being a huge cry for Jawa next?

[Fordel]

I'm sure people will ask for it, I doubt they'll get it.


There's at least half a dozen head tentacle species they need to go through first 

[Minvaren]

Plus the Voss.   

[Zetor]

Ugnaught or bust.

[Evildrider]

I would love Jawa or Bothans.  I think Voss or Togruta will be next tho.

[ajax34i]

Jawa sounds good on paper, but, I mean, what classes can they be?  Don't see them being tanks, for example.

Also, neither the Republic nor the Empire really associate with them all that much.

[Tannhauser]

Blizz, a Jawa companion, is a tank.

[Mattemeo]

Jawa sounds good on paper, but, I mean, what classes can they be?  Don't see them being tanks, for example.

Also, neither the Republic nor the Empire really associate with them all that much.

They're force sensitive. They know how to shoot guns. I really don't think they couldn't be any class they wanted. They're just small. They also speak one of the most spoken languages in the SW universe; Jawa Trade.
The main issue with Jawas as a playable race is that they don't speak Galactic Basic; which means essentially all dialogue would end up being the same 10 fragments of Jawa gobbledigook which would get even more annoying than the 10 phrases of Huttese gobbledigook already in game. Same issue with the equally awesome/adorable Ortolans.


My guess is Nautolans will probably be the next most popular after Cathar. I wouldn't mind rolling a naughty Nautolan Sith Warrior.

[Paelos]

I  ORTOLANS

[Ingmar]

I think Nautolans is a good second guess. At least for now any additional ones they add are going to be ones that a) use the same skeleton as the regular player models, b) are already in game,  and c) that can reasonably be assumed to speak Basic.

I am nearly certain you'll never see the tiny comedy races as player races.

[koro]

Nautolans or Togruta would be my next choice for a player race. I've got a couple friends who really want playable Togruta, bordering on obsession.

[Fordel]

I doubt we'll fucking see it anytime soon, if at all... but what they could do, is make a new class. The "Protocol" Droid.

I think you could have a lot of fun going around the galaxy, being your own version of HK-47. It would be a lot of fucking new dialogue though, since every quest NPC would have to interact with you differently.

[Falconeer]

Any change to commandos/mercenaries DPS-wise is insane. What are they thinking? Are they aware of what a commando in good hands can do?
That said, I can't understand the changes since I don't have a commando. Could you please explain this to me?

Additionally in Game Update 1.3, we’ve made changes to improve the gameplay and quality of life of Commando/Mercenary damage-dealing specs. We’ve spent a lot of time playtesting and investigating the concerns of the community, and while Commando/Mercenary damage is largely on target, prior to Game Update 1.3, resource management made performance streaky and a little too unreliable.

We’ve made the following changes to the Commando/Mercenary for Game Update 1.3 to improve resource management and simplify stack upkeep for Gunnery/Arsenal specs:

Cell Charger/Terminal Velocity has been redesigned to passively restore 1 energy cell/vent 8 heat every 6 seconds.
Gravity Surge/Light ‘Em Up now additionally grants an extra stack of Charged Barrel/Tracer Lock and Charged Barrier/Power Barrier, if applicable, with each Grav Round/Tracer Missile fired.
Target Lock/Advanced Targeting has been redesigned. Now gives Full Auto/Unload and High Impact Bolt/Rail Shot 10% armor penetration per point.
Now Gravity Surge/Light ‘Em Up simultaneously increases the number of stacks built by each buff tied to Grav Round/Tracer Missile. This small change gets Commandos/Mercenaries into their core gameplay faster and more seamlessly. Additionally, we’ve improved the resource management game and have given Commandos/Mercenaries some armor penetration for better parity with Vanguard/Powertech Assault Specialist/Pyrotech skill trees.

[Sjofn]

My commando is a healer, so I can't help you much. It seems like they've made it so it takes a lot less time for a commando or merc to ramp up into their "real" DPS and have it be harder for them to run out of ammo/overheat.

[Evildrider]

It's to get them out of the tracer spam faster and into other abilities. 

[Fordel]

The ammo talent change is just to smooth out the regen, remove the streaks of no regen due to bad luck on crits.

The big GravRound talent switcheroo is to make it so all the various buffs that trigger off GravRound all trigger faster. It used to be only the armor debuff would build up faster, so you only needed 2-3 gravrounds to max that, while all the other buffs still took a full 5 rounds. Now anything that triggers off GravRound will gain benefit of the stack increase on cast talent.

Target Lock Armor Pen change is to bring up Gunnery DPS and to equalize the Commando Shared Tree DPS with the Vanguard Shared Tree DPS. Vanguards using their shared tree spec could get up to 90% armor pen on High impact bolt, while Commando shared tree dps did not have access to a equivalent talent.

[Minvaren]

Found some details on the pricing for "per-character Legacy" perks last night.

A few snippets, to max each category:

275k Improved Warzone Experience
275k Improved Class Mission Experience
350k Legacy of Crafting

150k Improved Space Mission Experience
150k Improved Exploration Experience

And apparently Spaaaaaace XP got nerfed in 1.2, so that 150K just puts you back to pre-1.2 XP levels...   

I understand MMOs are all grind, but man, I might have 200K between my 4 50s and 2 30s at present.  By the time I can save enough for these perks, I won't have any non-maxed alts to spend the cash on.

[Sjofn]

That shit is way too expensive for a per-character thing imo.

[Ingmar]

The only one I see myself getting is the crafting one (which should pay for itself in crit crafted stuff eventually.) Maybe on the 7th or 8th dude I'll feel like I need to speed the XP up but it already goes pretty fast.

[Sky]

The only one I see myself getting is the crafting one (which should pay for itself in crit crafted stuff eventually.) Maybe on the 7th or 8th dude I'll feel like I need to speed the XP up but it already goes pretty fast.

Isn;t crit crafting for augment slots? Which in 1.3 you can put in with a crafting station?

[Minvaren]

The crafting one just speeds up time to make stuff, IIRC.  Maxing companions + faster crafting speed = more crits in a given time frame, is I believe what Ingmar is saying.

Augment slots can be added in 1.3 with a kit at a station, but they can be kind of pricey as well.

[Ingmar]

The only one I see myself getting is the crafting one (which should pay for itself in crit crafted stuff eventually.) Maybe on the 7th or 8th dude I'll feel like I need to speed the XP up but it already goes pretty fast.

Isn;t crit crafting for augment slots? Which in 1.3 you can put in with a crafting station?

The augment kits are going to be expensive. Also for non-worn items critting makes 2 instead of adding an augment slot - mods, augments, etc.

[koro]

The price per thing isn't too bad for me personally, considering I make at least 200k daily just from the Belsavis and Corellia dailies, but I'm one of the handful of people who actually doesn't mind doing them. Would be quite nice if people who weren't daily ball-punchers or auction house moguls could afford this stuff, though. 

[Mattemeo]

275k Improved Warzone Experience
275k Improved Class Mission Experience
350k Legacy of Crafting

150k Improved Space Mission Experience
150k Improved Exploration Experience

Per CHARACTER?!

[Ingmar]

The idea is you'd only buy one of these per secondary alt character just to get a faster/more focused leveling experience, nobody would ever need to buy all of them.

They feel high-ish, but not completely egregious to me. You can max out one of them with the money you make in just a couple hours on your main doing dailies/space missions/whatever. (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=22154.0 toot toot)

[Evildrider]

Those prices look fine to me.  All I do is WZ's, no dailies or playing the AH and I am sitting on 5-6 mil across my characters.

[Minvaren]

On a side note, the last PTS patch appears to have been a week ago, and there was no real live-side patch to speak of today, so my guess is 1.3 will go live next week.

[Sjofn]

The price per thing isn't too bad for me personally, considering I make at least 200k daily just from the Belsavis and Corellia dailies, but I'm one of the handful of people who actually doesn't mind doing them. Would be quite nice if people who weren't daily ball-punchers or auction house moguls could afford this stuff, though. 

I only do the Corellia ones when I feel like it, and I JUST bought the cyborg race (I just ... felt like making a cyborg JK for some reason) so I am being a little whiny about being poor, I admit. Especially since the character I liked doing dailies on (my guardian JK) has been ABANDONED on Shien so I'd have space for a new JK on the New Server (Ingmar peer pressured me into the sentinel thing). I just need to learn to love doing them on my commando instead or something. 

[Mattemeo]

Nevermore showed me the ropes at the Black Hole but honestly I haven't felt remotely compelled to get into dailies in SWtOR. I think the endless bullshit of WoW Cataclysm/Firelands dailies completely finished me off.
I am poor in SWtOR. Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope poor.

[Minvaren]

I ran dailies for a few days, and did the final 3 space missions on multiple characters for weeks to afford my ship droid and mailbox and grind companion gifts.

Shortly thereafter I had a WoW Argent Tournament flashback, and lost all desire to run them.  My Trooper with slicing is my main income source at present...

[Amaron]

The cost to move high level mods around makes me constantly poor across all my characters.  What they need to do is come up with a better gold sink for people who don't bother with customizing.   That said I don't see the costs on that new legacy stuff that bad.

A mere +30% pvp xp is retarded though.  That just brings it close to where it should be at base.

[Crumbs]

Nevermore showed me the ropes at the Black Hole but honestly I haven't felt remotely compelled to get into dailies in SWtOR. I think the endless bullshit of WoW Cataclysm/Firelands dailies completely finished me off.
I am poor in SWtOR. Obi-Wan Kenobi in A New Hope poor.

Besides slicing, diplomacy and underworld got me ludicrous amounts of money.  Do mid level missions and sell the purple mats.  I literally got whatever amount of credits I dared to ask for.  900k for a stack of 10?  SOLD

Of course this was a few months ago 

[Sky]

I gave up complaining about being poor, since I play mmo wrong.

It certainly doesn't hurt my barrier to re-entry, though.

Pisses me off, because they have the core of a really awesome game, but the folks they seems to be shooting for are the ones who dislike the story parts.

[Phred]

I gave up complaining about being poor, since I play mmo wrong.

It certainly doesn't hurt my barrier to re-entry, though.

Pisses me off, because they have the core of a really awesome game, but the folks they seems to be shooting for are the ones who dislike the story parts.

Don't they already have all the folks that like the story parts?