Most notably, we’re seeing a decrease in legacy level requirements for obtaining XP increase perks:
The Legacy Levels required for experience modifier perks have been adjusted. The ranks now require Legacy Level 2/3/5/7/10 (changed from 5/10/15/20/25).
The Legacy Levels required for companion modifier perks have been adjusted. The ranks now require Legacy Level 2/5/8 (changed from 5/10/15).
The Capital World and Outlaw’s Den priority transit perks now require Legacy Level 2 (previously 10).
The Fleet Vanguard and Black Hole priority transit perks now require Legacy Level 5 (previously 10).
The Legacy Levels required for the repair droid perks have been adjusted. The ranks now require Legacy Level 5/8/12 (changed from 10/15/25).
The field respec perk now require Legacy Level 5 (previously 10).
I am happy to see this. I was so disappointed when I realized I couldn’t access the ship droid crafting upgrades, thanks to having leveled legacy on 3 servers instead of just one. Now to tally up how much I want to spend on Legacy perks…
Since sharing my thoughts on how I chose legacy perks for my next SWTOR alt, I’ve heard a lot of folks talk about the lack of customization available for their characters, and complaints that there wasn’t anything “good to buy” in the new crop of Legacy character perks. To that I say: Baloney! There are perks for altaholics and end game only focused players alike. And to that end, I’ve grouped them together to make it easier to see the playtime customization available to you through their purchase.
ALTAHOLICS
I like to PvP as I level.
PURCHASE: Improved Warzone Experience
I like to do Flashpoints as I level
PURCHASE: Improved Flashpoint Experience
I can’t tear myself away from Space Missions
PURCHASE: Improved Space Mission
I wish I could mostly just do my Class quests and skip a bunch of the others
PURCHASE: Improved Class Mission Experience
I like to wander around and uncover all the points on the map as I level
PURCHASE: Improved Exploration Experience
I miss my speeder when I start my alts…
PURCHASE: Improve Speeder piloting
ONE CHARACTER, END GAME FOCUSED
It takes too long to get to the Fleet/my capital city/ the Black Hole dailies
PURCHASE: Priority Transport
There’s never a repair droid when you need one in the raid or flashpoint
PURCHASE: Field Repair Droid
What this Operation really needs is a mailbox…
PURCHASE: Field Mail Droid
I wish I didn’t have to spend 15 minutes heading out to respec for my groups…
PURCHASE: Field Respecialization
CRAFTING MIN/MAXERS and ROMANCE ADDICTS
I wish more of my max level items critted to include an augment
PURCHASE: Legacy of Crafting
I like to grind out in the open world, but my bags get filled with junk too quickly but I am too impatient to send my companion to sell it
PURCHASE: Legacy of Leadership
I like to shower my companions in gifts
PURCHASE: Legacy of Altruism
I wish my smart conversation choices resulted in more affection
PURCHASE: Legacy of Persuasion
Now that you can see how these perks can directly improve your day-to-day game play, for details on how much these perks will cost you, in both legacy levels and cash, check out Dulfy’s detailed listing.
I have been a little reluctant about splashing out on legacy character perks for several reasons. Firstly, the server I am spending all my post Patch 1.3 time on is the server upon which I have the least amount of credits (due to it being my newest/least amount of time spent upon it server.) And secondly, I’m just not sure which of my characters I will be leveling next. But it would seem foolish to take even 1 more step towards an alt level without thinking about purchasing at least a couple of the experience related character perks.
Because of my legacy unlocks on 3 servers, I am also pretty far behind on building a legacy, so I am not able to maximize any of the perks. But every little bit helps, yes? If you’d like to see the full tables for the perks, check out Dulfy’s excellent Legacy Character Perks guide.
Improved Warzone Experience
Rank
Credits
Legacy level Required to Purchase
Cumulative
XP Boost
1
20k
5
2
2
30k
10
4
Total
50 k
6%
Improved Class Mission Experience
Rank
Credits
Legacy level Required to Purchase
Cumulative
XP Boost
1
20k
5
2
2
30k
10
4
Total
50 k
6%
Improved Exploration Experience
Rank
Credits
Legacy level Required to Purchase
Cumulative
XP Boost
1
10k
5
2
2
20k
10
4
Total
30k
6%
So, that would mean spending 130k credits to gain 6% extra XP from three of my regular activities. That seems totally worth it for my next alt or two, since it would mean not feeling obligated to do every bonus quest in an area. Or to stay on certain planets until my eyes bleed. You know what I’m talking about.
Also of interest, given that on my Smuggler I am leveling Armormech from scratch, is thinking about upping my ability to quickly improve her companion affection levels, to hopefully result in better crafting results.
Legacy of Altruism Increases amount of affection earned from companion gifts.
Rank
Credits
Legacy level Required to Purchase
Cumulative Affection Gain
1
10k
5
10%
2
20k
15
10%
Total
30k
20%
Legacy of Persuasion Increases amount of affection earned from conversations with your companions.
Rank
Credits
Legacy level Required to Purchase
Cumulative Affection Gain
1
10k
5
10%
2
20k
10
10%
Total
30k
20%
Despite my love for crafting, and knowing I will definitely be taking my Armormech to 400, it’s a little harder to justify spending 60k credits to improve my companion affection gains. It’s definitely not something worth purchasing for my Jedi Knight, who already has her Biochem at 400. But it is still a solid consideration for my smuggler. I may wait until she’s made enough cash herself from selling Armormech items to purchase it for her.
What about you? Which character perks have you splashed out on, and how did you decide which character got which perks?
Thanks to playing around a bit on the PTR over the past 2 weeks, I’d started to get my characters ready for the Patch. I wasn’t expecting it to be coming out this week mind you, but now that it’s confirmed for Thursday, I’m glad I’d started preparing.
Grabbing Items That Have Planned Obsolescence
As previously noted, my first and foremost goal in this area was obtaining some purple lightsaber crystals. In addition to the one I equipped on Anexxia, I stuck a few in the bank for future 50s. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to score two purple crystals for my Marauder on my new server. I just didn’t have quite enough time to level her up and gather the credits to buy her crystals. I’ll just have to cross my fingers that as an artificer she’ll eventually be able to make some sort of super awesome crystals for her dual lightsabers.
The next thing I did, on my original server, was splash out on a sweet new ride, as seen above. They’re taking this mounts out of the game with Patch 1.2 so this was my last chance to grab one. And since I had the unused cash there, it was worth spending the million credits on. Some day, when I can move Anexxia over to a server I am actually playing on, it will have been worth it.
Mulling Over My Family Trees
If I had to make a prediction, I’d say that deciding on family tree structure and setting up custom UIs will consume most players’ entire Thursday night play time. That’s why I’ve been trying to think through my family connections this week. The matriarch picks have been easy enough, but then I have to think through for each of the alts, which of these roles is their best fit:
rival
ally
spouse
child
adopted child
sibling
I think the rival is a really fun choice and I’m planning to have at least 1 rival per family tree, to keep my matriarchs on their toes. Rival is a good way to deal with those opposite faction alts, for sure, but in my case, I think it’s more likely that we have a few strong willed Siths who’d just as soon murder each other as cooperate. I highly suggest thinking this through and sketching out your trees prior to logging in post-patch, especially if you’re like me and have families on multiple servers to setup.
Preparing for the Crafting Changes
I slowed down on my moddable gear crafting and instead made sure to shore up my stores of crafting materials. I expect there to be significant demand for the augmented custom pieces in the first few weeks post-patch, and as such, want to ensure I have enough materials on hand to make a good number of items right after the servers come back up.
The incoming crafting changes are a primary reason I hurried my new character through leveling her artifice to 400 so quickly, even though it meant missing out on her chance at her purple lightsaber crystals.
If you haven’t checked out the Patch Notes yet, a few of the key profession-wide crafting changes include:
On critical successes, crafted Custom (orange) gear now receives an Augment slot.
The [Exceptional], [Advanced], [Superior], and [Mastercraft] suffixes have been removed from crafted item names. [Augmented] will be appended as a suffix to crafted items that were a critical success.
When crafting item modifications (mods, enhancements, etc), a critical success now yields double the quantity of modifications.
Crafting materials obtained via endgame content now stack in the player’s inventory. They no longer bind on pickup.
Endgame crafting materials (Biometric Crystal Alloy, Self-Perpetuating Power Cells, Alien Data Cubes, and Rakata Energy Nodes) now drop less frequently but are freely tradable.
Augments can now be crafted by several professions.
Schematics are no longer consumed if a player attempts to use one that is already known.
Similarly, the Reverse Engineering process by which we obtain schematics and materials from crafted or found items is being improved significantly:
Players may now reverse engineer many endgame items to research schematics for items and mods. Tier 2 (new) endgame items can be reverse engineered, and players have a chance to learn how to craft these items up on reverse engineering them. Set Armorings do not provide schematics for crafters.
Players with the appropriate professions are now able to reverse engineer random drop items and acquire materials from them. This includes Operation materials from endgame items.
Reverse engineering Tier 2 items rewards Premium, Prototype, and Artifact quality crafting materials used to craft Tier 2 endgame items.
Random items, particularly armor, can now be reverse engineered by crafters based on the items’ stats.
Crafted Vibroknives and shotguns can now be researched via reverse engineering. Reverse engineering Vibroknives and shotguns may now yield research variants for Armstechs.
Artificers can now reverse engineer relics, shields, generators, and foci.
Cybertechs can now reverse engineer all earpieces.
The chance of researching schematics via reverse engineering has been significantly increased.
Augments may now be reverse engineered for a chance to research their schematics by several professions.
Players can now decide how many items from a stack they wish to reverse engineer.
Synthweaving is one of the crafting professions that will gain the ability to craft augments, among a few other key changes:
Synthweavers can now learn schematics allowing the creation of Strength, Willpower, Defense, Alacrity, and Presence Augments. Augments can be reverse engineered for a chance to research Prototype and Artifact quality schematics.
Critical successes while crafting Custom (orange) outfits will add an Augment slot to the resulting item.
Additional lower-level light armor schematics have been added.
Material requirements for some Custom (orange) outfits have changed.
The Codex entry for Synthweaving has been updated.
Synthweavers can now reverse engineer random armor drops with Strength or Willpower stats.
I’m excited to log in and poke around on Thursday! Are you ready? How have you been preparing?
P.S. Thanks to my awesome TOR Reporter podcast co-host Chris, who picked up the code at PAX East, I am also the proud mama of this baby Taun Fawn! I got to visit him on the PTR last night, and have been assured by the protocol droids that he will come to stay with all the characters across my account in Live as soon as Patch 1.2 hits.
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.
As a serial MMO vanity pet collector, I’m thrilled to have gotten a few minutes of lead systems designer Damion Schubert’s time to talk about SWTOR’s adorable mechanical vanity pets. Read on for some details on upcoming additional ways to obtain vanity pets beyond purchasing from a vendor, pet improvements we can expect to see in the next major content patch, and find out which of the current pets is his favorite.
IR: Vanity or companion pets were added to the game pretty close to the end after a significant amount of forum speculation as to whether or not they would be in-game. Were they always on the road map for inclusion?
DS: They were always on the road map for inclusion! One of the things about project development of a massive MMO is that you have to prioritize features in the best way to ensure the project gets done. Tops are features that have high content requirements (such as story) and/or have major impacts on testing the core gameplay and world flow (such as combat and worldbuilding), so features that impacted those elements were built first. Features that were more auxiliary to that, such as vanity pets and the dressing room, were less central – not having them in wasn’t going to make the beta substantially worse or prevent other devs from doing their jobs — and so those features were prioritized downwards. But we knew we wanted them in.
IR: Right now, the pets we are seeing are all purchasable, some with light/dark side alignment requirements. Any intentions of having some that are drops in the future?
DS: Absolutely! In fact, some of these should show up in our next major patch! I don’t want to give out too big a hint, but they smell kinda bad on the outside.
IR: Do any of the currently discovered pets interact with their environment? i.e. in reply to locations/activities or emotes?
DS: Not at this time. It’s something we’d like to add, but there are higher code priority features in queue right now.
IR: Is there going to be any way for characters to obtain opposite-faction pets?
DS: We currently have LS/DS pets, not opposite faction pets. That’s not to say this won’t change. One of the things we want to do a lot more of is adding items that take a bit of communal exploration to discover – we’re well aware of how popular Datacrons and the Magenta Lightsaber crystal is – and minipets is one place where we’ve identified adding fun things like that could really pay off.
IR: Are there plans to add in more pets? I’ve seen some pretty swanky robots out there I’d love to have miniaturized and following me along on my journeys.
DS: We plan to add a steady stream of new vanity pets to most major patches. Note: I didn’t say ‘all’, but we’re making a concerted effort to do this frequently.
IR: Will social level and eventually legacy level be key items pet collectors will want to focus on for access to more pets? Or do you think you will be finding additional ways such as random drops to spread around the pets?
DS: Yes, and yes! We want to use the pets to reward as many kinds of gameplay as we can.
IR: Which is your favorite vanity pet in game currently and why?
DS: I gotta say, the little sandcrawler just cracks me up every time I see it.
IR: Any other improvements we can count on?
DS: Yep! The abilities page just got restructured to improve usability, and one of the things that fell out of that was a dedicated ‘Pets’ section. This will come in the next major patch.
A big THANK YOU! to Damion for taking the time to talk minipets with us!
The Legacy System is a sort of server-wide achievement and activities tracking system for your characters. Currently a work in progress, the SWTOR Devs have recently released some details on how they plan to evolve the system. Some highlights:
ability to identify the family relationships between your characters on any given server. (i.e. you can make your characters the sons, daughters, brothers, cousins, friends of your main character.)
points will eventually unlock abilities, perks and “bind on Legacy” items.
legacy perks will range from attacks to the ability to customize your next character’s in-game experience.
an example of the game experience customization is spending legacy points to buy a speeder bike at a much earlier level than your first character, thus allowing you to traverse the world more quickly (a perk I would definitely splash out on.)
After you complete the first Chapter of your class story, you will be alerted that you have an opportunity to choose your Legacy Surname. Choose carefully and consult spell-check or Wookieepedia before hitting enter on that name– it will stay with you across all your characters on that server and can not be changed (though it can be hidden if you discover you’ve made a mistake.)
When Do I get My Legacy Bar?
As soon as you have access to your Legacy surname, a second tracking bar will appear below your experience bar. That is the bar that will show you your legacy progress.
What Gives me Legacy Points?
Pretty much any activity that has you out and about in the world exploring and killing mobs will award you with legacy points. You will start to notice that every time you are awarded with XP for a new codec discovery, completing a quest or killing a mob that you will receive a small amount of Legacy experience as well. As you start rolling alts, everything they do from the moment they are rolled onward will grant you legacy points after you have unlocked the Legacy on your primary character. This includes alts of the opposite faction but rolled on the same server as your first legacy character.
Thoughts on Your Legacy Name
When you roll new alts, you will want their names to work well with your Legacy name, provided you plan to show it. That’s why you may want to skip the comedy legacy name or one that works only with your main, and think a little more broadly about what you plan to do within your SWTOR family of characters. Are you *really* going to want all of your characters running around with that other MMORPG reference as a Surname? In a year ? Two years? I pose the same question to all the folks who have rolled characters using the Game of Thrones universe as their naming platform. Similarly, I’ve seen a number of folks running around with a surname that is exactly the same as their primary character’s name. I can see that working for your alts, but I have to say, especially with jokey names, it looks a little off to see a toon running around the Imperial fleet with their first name repeated.
Naming Resources
Hands down, the best place to get ideas for your SWTOR characters’ names is Wookieepedia. You can browse through the pages and see hundreds, perhaps even thousands of great first and last names you can tweak and make your own. Other good places to research names:
Contrary to what you might think from some of the names you see running around or trolling general chat, SWTOR does actually have a naming policy, as found in the Terms of Service. As of this writing, they include:
You may not use any names that violate the General Rules. This includes the use of names that are hateful, defamatory, racist, ethnically offensive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature.
You may not use names that are harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of EA, BioWare or LucasArts, e.g. EASUX, Timsretarded, and Biowaresux.
You may not use names of any EA, BioWare, or LucasArts employee or service related to Star Wars: The Old Republic.
You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products, e.g. Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper.
You may not use names from popular culture or media, e.g. Lady Gaga or George Lucas.
You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant, e.g. Jesus, Winston Churchill.
You may not use proper names of areas within Star Wars for character names. Guild names, however, MAY use the proper names of specific areas to help promote role-playing and realm pride, e.g. Defenders of Tython or Protectors of Hutta.
You may not use proper names of non-player characters within Star Wars: The Old Republic, e.g. Darth Malgus, Satele Shan, Yoda, Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.
You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them, e.g. General Supertrooper, Captain Tim, Darth Timmy, Knight Wakey.
You may not use names that refer to drugs or that are drug related.
You may not use names that contain an inappropriate phrase, sentence or any fragment of a sentence or Leet speak, e.g. uberhaxer, xxspeederxx, lolface, rofl, Noobwhacker, TimmyF**k, kock, fuk.
You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules, e.g. Hamsolo, Yooda, DorthVader.
You may not use gibberish names when creating character, e.g. ajsdu, rifndsw, qweszs.
It appears that as with many other MMOs, enforcing the name policy is done both within the character creation interface (for obvious items such as popular character’s names), and enforced through other players reporting your name. The latter is most likely to happen when someone has an offensive name. Penalties for villating the naming rules can include being assigned a new name, being asked to rename your character or, in extreme cases, account closure.
I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more about the Legacy System, as the Devs get closer to rolling out these updates and more in a future patch.
UPDATE 4/12/12 With Patch 1.2 going live today, there are now a number of legacy unlocks available to you. See a few in my PTR post, and there will be a new post on Legacy incoming from me soon.
Inquisitor's Roadhouse 