Category Archives: companions

You Have Failed me for the Last Time, Qyzen Fess!

11 Saturday Aug 2012

Posted by in companions, diary entries

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Dear Qyzen,

When Master Yuon introduced us, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. After all, she seemed to think you were a loyal valuable ally, who was interested in supporting our cause.

After you lost all of your points, and dishonored yourself in the eyes of the Scorekeeper, even then I had faith in your support and perseverance, and considered you to be a valued member of my crew, and even a friend.  After all, me beloved Master Yuon thought so highly of you, and entrusted me to you in her time of sickness. And thus I took your surly attitude and constant complaining with a grain of salt. Even my cousin Anexxia’s warnings about the true nature of Trandoshans didn’t sway me in my support of you — I just took it as more dark side tainted villainy.

But then we traveled to Voss, and everything changed. It was like you lost your mojo. Despite complaining often about “weak opponents” that were unworthy of your time and attention, I found myself having to revive you, often. Time and time again, I turned down armoring that could have helped me bolster my own defenses to take upgraded gear for you, in the hopes it would help you sustain our tougher battles. But it was not to be.

After our third setback in as many days, which required us to have to backtrack through the entire dark heart to re-engage with a strong foe, who once again bested you, I could see the writing on the wall: our time together had to come to an end in order for me to fulfill my destiny.

I’m reassigning you to the ship, on holocomm duty. And effective immediately, Tharan shall accompany me on all off-ship excursions. I’m sorry that it had to come to this, but you have become somewhat of a liability.

Cheers,

Nexxi

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HK-51 Droid companion preview video

17 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in companions, video

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HK-51, I am coming for you, you sexy droid beast!

I have a certain lying jerkface companion I’ve been itching to airlock. I am certain you will do *quite nicely* as his replacement.

Ahem.

The video gives us an inside view of the droid factory wherein we will claim our prize. Now, as to how we will finally obtain access to it, that remains a mystery. Hopefully we will find out…soon. Real soon.

I’m guessing he will be tied in with our next big content patch, and hopefully a world event of some kind…All we know so far is what was released pre-Patch 1.3 by Daniel Erickson:

“We wanted to make the rollout huge, so it is a galaxy-spanning quest. You’re going to need characters on both sides, on the Republic and the Empire, in order to get him. It is the biggest single quest in the game by leaps and bounds.”

What do you think it’s going to take to unlock this smooth-talking assassin droid?

Getting Down on the SWTOR Patch 1.2 PTR

05 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in companions, crew skills, legacy system, PTR, video

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I have been on vacation, in a land without Internet or cellphone service, known as the NorCal coast. As such I have only just now gotten a chance to hop on the SWTOR PTR and check out all the changes that await us.

But first and foremost, I  have to tell you about the above screenshot. That isn’t a hack — that is me getting to dance with Khem Val!! That’s right, you too can unlock the companion dance ability (which you will find in your abilities window, under the legacy tab, so you can pull it out to your action bars to use it.) This totally awesome ability is available for the low low cost of only attaining social level II, or purchasable with Legacy level 3.

I didn’t realize just how much fun I would have with this one. But dancing with Khemmy totally made my day.

Ahem.

There are a number of other equally awesome and amazing changes now available to us on the PTR.

Family Tree

When you open your legacy window for the first time, you’ll get to start building your family tree. That means right now is the time to start thinking about how you plan to populate it. Whom will be your family matriarch/patriarch?

I made Anexxia my family matriarch then set about thinking about where all my other characters would fit in. AS of this writing, the options available to you for each successive character are:

  • rival
  • ally
  • spouse
  • child
  • adopted child
  • sibling

As you drag each character into the family tree, over the matriarch/patriarch, you will have the opportunity to decide where they fit in. And don’t stress — you can move them around if you don’t get it quite right on first click-and-drag.

Enhanced Character Screen

The biggest addition here is the Unify Colors button. You may toggle on or off which visible clothing pieces you would like to have color coordinated to match your chestpiece. That means no more putting off equipping that new piece of gear because you don’t want to look like a clown college’s wardrobe mistress.

Additionally, your character screen now has a few character customization options available at your fingertips that used to require some poking around in the preferences menu:

  • Show Dark Side Corruption
  • Hide Head Slot

Legacy Unlocks

AS you can see, my flitting around from character to character, on different servers, means I haven’t unlocked too many of the available legacy unlocks. But as seen at the top of the post, I did unlock the all important Companion Dance. Other easily attainable unlocks are the Tech Emotes, which allow you to /datapad, /holocom, and /map whenever the feeling suits you.

Crafting Improvements

The Crafting changes we’re seeing on the PTR are going to make those crafters among us very happy, starting with the individual profession windows. You can now sort by custom. That means no more clicking on every blue recipe in your window to try to find your moddable gear! And, those custom pieces now show as orange, which gives a visual queue and makes so much more sense.

To check out the critical success of moddable pieces, I crafted 25 synthweaving items, across all 3 armor proficiencies. Of those, 5 pieces critted, resulted in an augment slot being added. For ease of ID’ing these exceptional pieces, their names have [augmented] following their name.

Other nice changes to the items is showing you if an item is not able to be researched to find a new schematic, as in this example:

Or if an item *does* have the ability to be researched for finding a new schematic, it lists its % chance, as in this example:

User Interface (UI) Changes

Last and definitely not least, players will now be able to significantly customize their user interface, using in-game functionality. To say that I’m impressed with the level of customization is an understatement. but don’t just take my word for it– take a look at this UI overview window. I consider it to be required viewing for showing you how to make the most of the UI customization options available to you in Patch 1.2.

Making Friends with Khem Val

05 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in companions, screenshots

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When Khem Val and I were first thrown together by fate, we got off to a bit of a rocky start. At every convenient juncture, he made sure to let me know just how dissatisfied he was at being requested to do my bidding. This grumbling was interspersed with the occasional not-so-veiled threat to eat me alive.

But the will of a Sith is not easily swayed. I was not about to put up with that sort of insolence. And I certainly wasn’t afraid of my loin-cloth wearing new buddy. Even though he could probably crack me in half with ease if he was operating at his alleged former capacity.

Slowly but surely, as I took Khemmy out into the TOR universe, and he saw my bravery, and got to eat many evil doers, he started to warm up to me. I am pretty sure the occasional companion gift helped as well, but it was mostly his seeing my bravery in battle that did it. And as my Dark Side points have pushed into level IV, he’s only become more of my champion.

That’s not to say all is rosy in our relationship mind you. He still talks about his former master entirely too much. If he was sooo amazing, then why isn’t he here right now, Khemmy? Hmmm? And when I show that despite being an uncompromising bad ass I still have manners and acknowledge and thank others for their collaboration in my missions, well that all raises his hackles. But it’s nothing a little punishment (or a killing spree) doesn’t take care of.

It warms my heart when he calls me his little Sith now. But what really pleases me is when he threatens to eat anyone who crosses me or doesn’t treat me with the respect that is due a Sith Lord of my stature. We’ve come a long way, Khemmy!

Keep Your Account Safe, and Gain Access to Vanity Items with the SWTOR Authenticator

28 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in administrivia, companions, pets

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In case the peace of mind associated with knowing your SWTOR account has an extra layer of protection against cybertheft wasn’t enough, your purchase of a Star Wars: the Old Republic authenticator also gives you access to the security vendor you may have noticed lurking around the fleet or your faction’s capital city.

No, the Security Vendor’s goods won’t make you unstoppable in the warzones, but it does provide a number of fun little toys and vanity items, which on the Empire side include:

  • Khem Val Customization 14,  4 and 9 (12,500c)
  • Kaliyo Djannis Customization 8 (12,500c)
  • Mako Customization 8 (12,500c)
  • Vette Customization 2 (12,500c)
  • A full set of Imperial Dancer’s gear (4,900-5,950c per piece)
  • Exchange Bandit speeder (1.5 mil credits)
  • Mouse droid vanity pet (25,000 c)
  • Rhythm Augmentation Droid (55,000 c)

My first purchase from the vendor, after I splash out on my level 40 riding skill and speeder, will definitely be the mouse droid. Can’t believe I’ve gone this many levels without a pet!

You can order your physical authenticator from the Origin store for $4 plus shipping, or download an app for your Android device or iPhone. Well worth it in my opinion.

Inquisitor Companions: What You Need to Know

24 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in companions, crew skills, spoilers

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Please Note: If you do not wish to know anything at all about your Inquisitor’s companions prior to them joining you in game, stop and please head to another page.

The purpose of this page is to help you effectively understand amd manage your Companions. As I am only level 33 as of this writing, I only have 3 of the 5 companions thus far and will update the post as I obtain the new companions.

Khem Val

When do you obtain them, and where?

He joins you as you do your class quests on Korriban, anywhere from levels 7-9.

What do they wear?

Wears heavy armor with strength and endurance his two primary stats. Uses a vibrosword as his main hand and a shield generator as his off-hand.

What kind of gifts do they like?

Weapons and Cultural artifacts are his favorites. Will also give points for Trophy, Technology and Imperial Memorabilia gifts.

What wins their affection in conversation?

Anything involving killing everyone, strength and fearlessness will earn you +affection points with him. Has an aversion to your being polite or well-mannered in your responses to other people. i.e. saying thank you to someone or noting how their support helped you be successful tends to earn you -1 affection. And never ever let someone go if there is an option to kill them instead. He positively HATES that. And if you are gong light side with your alignment, it will probably be best if the two of you part ways quickly.

What is the best role for this companion?

If he is by your side as you quest, you will typically want to have him in a tanking role. When he is back on the ship doing your crew skills bidding, note that he has the following Crew Skill bonuses:
+15 Artifice Efficiency
+5 Investigation Efficiency

Andronikos Revel

When do you obtain them, and where?

He joins you as you do your class quests on Tattooine, anywhere from levels 24-26.

What do they wear?

Wears medium armor with cunning and endurance his two primary stats. Uses blaster pistols as his weapons, which is appropriate given his gunslinger/pirate life style.

What kind of gifts do they like?

It’s no surprise that this former pirate likes Luxury, Underworld Goods, Military Gear and Weapons gifts.

What wins their affection in conversation?

I have to start of by saying he pretty much hates everything I say, as a dark side aligned player. He balks at asserting one’s authority, or acknowledging hierarchy/others’ authority, and using any means other than a brawl to settle a dispute. He seems to react more favorably to jumping in and taking action quickly, keeping your promises, and getting yourself into complicated situations.

What is the best role for this companion?

If he is by your side as you quest, you will typically want to have him in a single-target ranged DPS support role (though you can change his active abilities to do AOE damage.) He is also allegedly the Sith Inquisitor female’s romance companion, but I wouldn’t know because he hates my guts. When he is back on the ship doing your crew skills bidding, note that he has the following Crew Skill bonuses:
+2 slicing critical
+2 underworld trading critical

And as noted in the comments on TORhead, at some point early on you have a conversation with him during which you can ask him to be your pilot. If you do that, during space missions his will be the primary voice you hear instead of your character.

Ashara Zavros

When do you obtain them, and where?

She joins you as you do your class quests on Taris, anywhere from levels 32-36.

What do they wear?

Wears medium armor with strength and endurance her two primary stats. Uses dual lightsabers as her weapons.

What kind of gifts do they like?

She likes Weapon, Military Gear, Republic Memorabilia, and Cultural Artifact gifts.

What wins their affection in conversation?

Like Andronikos, she pretty much hates everything I say, as a dark side aligned player. She seems to like it when I reassure her she’s made the right decision by coming over to the dark side with me, and likes when I am lenient and don’t purple lightning everyone for fun. She has also responded well to my attempts at humor. She reacts negatively when I ask an NPC why their petty situation is my problem/why I should care.

What is the best role for this companion?

If she is by your side as you quest, she will be in a melee DPS support role. Those of you playing male Inquisitors will likely want to try your hand at romancing her, but note that if you’re not a light side aligned player, you are going to have a rough time getting on her good side for that. When she is back on the ship doing your crew skills bidding, note that she has the following Crew Skill bonuses:

+10 Synthweaving Efficiency
+10 Diplomacy Efficiency

Reflections on a SWTOR BETA Weekend, Pt. 2: Professions

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in BETA, companions, crew skills, screenshots

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spaceshipI had 2 big goals for my BETA time, in addition to just getting a feel for caster game play and gaining familiarity with companions as party members: 1) to see how far I could get with leveling my professions, and 2) to earn my spaceship. Happily, despite having to work for half the BETA weekend, I was able to make great progress against these goals.

As soon as you complete the first portion of your class quest, and get sent off to the Fleet, at level 10 or so, you are able to start training your professions. Special note: if you go ahead and talk to all the trainers as soon as you arrive at the fleet (only accepting those skills you actually want to train, mind you), you can earn a nice chunk of experience. There is a great visual that shows the best skills to pair with each other to maximize your leveling ability. You may only train a total of 3 crew skills per character, which may be any combination of gathering skills, a maximum of 1 crafting skill, and mission skills. I went with Synthweaving, Archaeology, and Underworld Trading.

Crafting Skill: Synthweaving

In other games, I’ve often taken up tailoring, so it was no surprise that I chose to go with Synthweaving for my cloth wearing caster. I like having the ability to craft gear upgrades for myself, and have typically found the rare or better crafted gear to sell pretty well, especially in the early days of a game/expansion.

I ended my BETA time with a skill of 160 or so in Synthweaving (I had an annoying keyboard not recognized problem as I was wrapping up my BETA time and neglected to write down my final #.) I was able to easily finance this leveling, at level 16, through selling a few world drop items, and making 6 blue quality belts and gloves, which I put on the auction house for 1200-1500 credits. Despite buying a few rare quality cloths from the auction house in order to do this crafting, I ended up with 8500 credits at the end of my professions leveling spree.

My primary tip is to reverse engineer every green quality item you make that you do not need for yourself or your companion. I found that I usually got 1-2 power crystals back for every item reverse engineered at the lower levels, which came in handy. I always made the most inexpensive item that was available to craft, but that had not yet been greyed out (once a pattern is in grey text in your skill window, it will no longer give you a skill point for crafting it.)

I also suggest making a blue quality item that will give you skill points whenever you have the special materials on hand that are required. You can obtain those special materials from some of your more expensive Archaeology and Underworld Trading missions, however, you will soon run into Fibrous Nylite Solution, which is an item you can purchase from any Crew Skill Trade Vendor, as is Thermoionic Gel Suspension.

Gathering Skill: Archaeology

One of the nice things about Archaeology, is once you get out into the world after level 10, you should be seeing crystal nodes as you go about your everyday questing. Although I did spend a good chunk of time sending my companions out on Archaeology missions to get up to 100 or so in skill, I also raked in a ton of power crystals as I walked around completing quests.

You are able to send your companion out to complete archaeology missions whenever you’d like. I personally kept my companion at my side for questing, so I could more effectively handle large packs and heroic quests by myself. But whenever I was zooming back to a capital city, I sent him off on an errand. Who knew bossing around my minions would be so much fun? Ahem. I mean, it was a very rewarding bonding experience to allow my companion to do my bidding. Oh nevermind– I think you are already seeing why I am going Sith.

There are two key factors that will help you decide which missions to send your companion out on — the cost and the potential end result. The cost to send my companion out on the mission started at 95 credits, and topped out at 295 credits. You receive new missions to send your companion on as you increase your character’s level, starting with 4 missions available to you at level 10. I found that I eventually had an archaeology skill level above the level of items available to me for completing the missions, but that was only due to some serious focus on profession leveling.

The third factor to influence what mission you send your companion on is what the potential reward will be. A few examples of how entry level quest yields are described:

  • Moderate Yield: Grade 1 Color Crystals
  • Moderate Yield: Grade 1 Power Crystals
  • Bountiful Yield: Grade 1 Artifact Fragments

Moderate yield missions can result in a return of 1 or 2 items upon completion. Bountiful yield quests were often 3-4 items in total. But it is important to note that on occasion, my companion would come back empty handed, especially when sent out on a bountiful yield (and more expensive I might add) quest.

Mission Skill: Underworld Trading

Underworld Trading was the more vexing of all the crew skills for me. Mission times started out being relatively short (3 minutes) and increased to 6 minutes over my small leveling journey. Now before you say “Aw, Anexxia, you are just too impatient!” let me remind you that these quests can fail. And somehow, it seemed it was always the 275 credit 6 minute quest that would fail.

In the BETA stress test weekend, quests would note that they could result in either Underworld Metals  or Grade 1 Luxury Fabrics. Under that design, I found I most often ended up with metals, and had to buy my cloth from the auction house. I believe the last minute professions fine tuning has broken the rewards down to separate them out, which will be helpful for maximizing your mission time and credits to enable you to obtain the raw materials you want for crafting your preferred items.

Due to the longer amount of time and greater credit cost per mission (starting at 95 but quickly headed into the 200s), this was the skill I got the least far (only mid 40s.) I have a feeling I’ll end up falling a little behind on this one as I level, but the upside is I think there will be a good auction house market for the cloth and metals if I don’t need to put them to use in my synthweaving.

Final Impressions on Professions

Overall, I found the professions to be easy enough to level, and without breaking the bank. I didn’t make my 10k credit goal (I wanted to buy a sandcrawler vanity pet from the lightside vendor), but I made a serious dent in my synthweaving leveling and made myself and my companion a few nice pieces. I think a lot of folks will be tempted to skip over the professions leveling in a mad rush to get to max level, but I would caution against that. You will not want to be sitting around in a capital city just sending your crew on missions, as a huge money sink, making items you can’t use at max level. In the long run, it’s a lot more efficient — and personally rewarding– to add the crew skills missions into your daily pace. And if you happen to be working from home and on a conference call, which prohibits you from actually being out and about completing quests with your character, crew skills leveling is a great multitasking activity. but don’t tell your boss I said so…

See you in the game soon!

dancing fools

Companion Update Pt. 2

09 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by in companions, developer blog, video

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Although the “Choose Your Side: Jedi Knight Versus Bounty Hunter” video above got the bulk of the attention from the community this Friday, there was a developer blog continuation of note as well. It’s been a few weeks since the last Companion developer’s update, so it was nice to see this Friday’s developer blog pick up where the first part left off.

The blog notes that Companions originally have an AI that took on a life of their own, with little player control, but that after testing feedback, decided to go the route of more player control, similar to player-controlled combat pets we’ve gotten used to in other games, like World of Warcraft.

we’ve taken a page from other BioWare games and added AI toggles to each ability to control whether the companion should decide on their own when to use them, or whether they should be manually activated by the player. Players who are not interested in managing their companion can leave the default toggles on and let them run on autopilot. Skilled players can take complete control of the companion by expanding the companion bar onto their screen and using the abilities directly as though they were player abilities.

The blog goes on to note that you can choose to “disable some area-of-effect abilities when using crowd control or when fighting tough single enemies”, which rocks. It’s incredibly aggravating when a combat pet wreaks havoc on your CC.

It will be interesting to see what the most effective way will be to strike the balance with effectively managing your companion’s activities while not neglecting attention on what your character is doing as well. I’ve yet to get any BETA play time, so I’m not aware of if we’ll be able to write macros as a method of controlling their activities, or if it will be muscle-memory of hot keyed abilities that will make us successful in this area. Guess we’ll have to wait and see…

SWTOR Companion Spotlight

23 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in companions, developer blog, previews, video

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Gamespot got a scoop on the latest Star Wars: the Old Republic news with the release of a Companion Q&A article and the above Star Wars: the Old Republic — Developers Dispatch video yesterday. As with every recent video release, this one left me anxious to find out more and get into the game and start customizing my character experience. It will definitely be interesting to see how one’s actions will influence the companion’s affection levels and resulting behaviors and story.

This video gave us a nice look at how Inquisitors will be making the best use of their companions in battle– letting them run on in ahead of us and take a beating, as we stand in the back, looking cool and shooting purpley lightning at our enemies. Mwahahahaha.

Ahem.

Their Q&A was with Game Director James Ohlen, who gave some insight into how players will be able to customize their companions:

Players are able to customize the appearance of their companions in two ways. Because companions are full characters with inventory slots, players can change the equipment their companions are wearing. You can give your tough-as-nails Mandalorian warrior companion some badass Mandalorian armor. Or you can put her in clothes reminiscent of Princess Leia’s famous gold bikini. Players can also change the skin color, hair, and facial features of their companion characters.

Ohlen went on to confirm that companions will have their own class, and will level up as players do, and will gain additional skills as they progress. However, players will not be able to choose advanced professions for their companions.

Today’s SWTOR.com community updates also focused on companions, with a Developer blog on Companions as well. I appreciated the examples they showed of how we will be able to customize the appearance of our companions, as often *my* idea of customization doesn’t mesh with the limited amount of options available in many games for customization. The Mako example had a pretty wide range. Unfortunately, I don’t think there will be a ton of variation available for the Khem Val, but I think I can live with it.

After this big Companion update, I hope this means we’ll soon have a Jawa addition to the Companion pages on SWTOR.com…