SWTOR Patch 1.3.4 Patch Notes

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in patch notes

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Another Tuesday means another Star Wars: the Old Republic (SWTOR) patch. A few of the highlights:

  • Players can now use vehicles on Coruscant in the large areas of the Black Sun, Old Galactic Market, The Works, and the Jedi Temple districts. This makes purchasers of the Legacy Character Perk of speeder riding at level10 very very happy.
  • The crafting UI now correctly takes companion affection and other factors into account when displaying mission times.
  • An issue that could prevent some players from being displayed in the Warzone group frames has been corrected.

Full notes after the jump!

Continue reading →

How to Pick the Right Legacy Perks for Your Main and Next Alt

19 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by in alts, legacy system

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, , ,

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

  1. I like to PvP as I level.
    PURCHASE: Improved Warzone Experience
  2. I like to do Flashpoints as I level
    PURCHASE: Improved Flashpoint Experience
  3. I can’t tear myself away from Space Missions
    PURCHASE: Improved Space Mission
  4. I wish I could mostly just do my Class quests and skip a bunch of the others
    PURCHASE: Improved Class Mission  Experience
  5. I like to wander around and uncover all the points on the map as I level
    PURCHASE: Improved Exploration Experience
  6. I miss my speeder when I start my alts…
    PURCHASE: Improve Speeder piloting

ONE CHARACTER, END GAME FOCUSED

  1. It takes too long to get to the Fleet/my capital city/ the Black Hole dailies
    PURCHASE: Priority Transport
  2. There’s never a repair droid when you need one in the raid or flashpoint
    PURCHASE: Field Repair Droid
  3. What this Operation really needs is a mailbox…
    PURCHASE: Field Mail Droid
  4. 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

  1. I wish more of my max level items critted to include an augment
    PURCHASE: Legacy of Crafting
  2. 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
  3. I like to shower my companions in gifts
    PURCHASE: Legacy of Altruism
  4. 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.

What perks have you ended up purchasing?

HK-51 Droid companion preview video

17 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in companions, video

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

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?

Doling Out the Legacy Character Perks

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in alts, legacy system

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , , , ,

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?

Leveling My Republic Toons and Feeding My SWTOR Crew Skills/GTN Addiction

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by in crew skills

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

,

I’ve been keeping Ashara busy, slaving away at the Synthweaving tables. I’ve been finding a good market for the many shiny new custom armor accessories I’ve obtained since Patch 1.3 hit.

I haven’t contained my crafting obsession to my Imperial server either. My Republicans…er, Republic citizens on Canderous Ordo have been getting in on the crafting action as well. I’ve powered up my Biochem to 400 on the level 24 Knight. This was primarily due to having hopes and reams of getting in some raiding time after I hit 50 on my Sage and thus needing a supplier for raid consumables. Of course now that my Sage is 44 and the end game is in sight, it’s not looking like raiding is going to happen with our weeknight raiding team hitting a rough patch, and our weekend Ops team being far too progressed to support a newbie 50. Arrrrgh!

Thus, I have been flirting with warzones on the Sage, and slowly but surely plugging along on her class quests. I’m finally off Belsavis, but taking my own sweet time crafting (she’s a 400 synthweaver) and farting around. It’s hard to make the push to 50 if you’re not sure what you’ll actually end up doing there. I’ve noticed her Underworld Trading missions seem to keep resulting in Armormech schematics, and only rarely a synthweaving schematic. And thus I did what any smart cookie would do: I trained up armormech on my wee baby smuggler and have gone to town with it.

I still have on my post-patch to do list to try out the Group Finder, as I keep seeing my significant other using it with much success (he got himself raid ready in a couple of days between careful GTN’ing, Flashpoints, and dailies.)

What’s keeping you busy now that you’ve settled in to Patch 1.3?

SWTOR 1.3.1 Patch Notes

03 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in patch notes

≈ Leave a comment

A small patch went in today, with a few bug fixes for patch 1.3. A few highlights:

  • Deleting the sell price of an item placed on the GTN no longer sets the value to “NaN.”.
  • Group leaders can now queue for a replacement player if group leadership was transferred manually after a group member quit or was vote-kicked.
  • Categories that player has not queued for no longer appear in the “Queued For:” tooltip.
Full Patch Notes after the jump!

New Synthweaving Schematics to Accessorize Your Look

01 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in crew skills, synthweaving

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, , ,

I have to admit that hands-down my favorite synthweaving change with Patch 1.3 was the addition of a ton of new patterns for boots, bracers, gloves and belts. And these aren’t just any new patterns– they round out our existing custom gear craftable sets. Although the match to chest takes care of some of the color matching difficulties that come up when trying to tie together your other pieces with it, there were a few sets that simply did not have a good match, especially in the belt and glove options. It’s been interesting to see what they’ve come up with.

The patterns are obtainable through Under World Trading missions that crit. Note that some people had surmised they could hedge their bets and guarantee a schematic by running discovered missions, but I have run a number of such missions that did not yield any schematics. The primary place I’ve obtained the schematics is, as expected, the GTN. My servers have some plucky individuals who have placed patterns up for as much as 300,000 credits. I hate those people. Just kidding. But seriously — given that the prices for the crafted items has already crashed down into the same territory as most other crafted items, why on Earth would I or anyone else pay such a crazy price? Not happening.

Here’s a rundown of the new patterns you can now learn:

Light Armor

Medium Armor

Heavy Armor

So how’s your hunt for the new patterns going so far?

Patch 1.3 Allies Patch Notes

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by in patch notes

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

, , ,

Well, it’s finally here– Patch 1.3 has been deployed on live servers! For recaps of some of the changes I’m most excited about, check out:

Full final patch notes after the jump!

Continue reading →

What’s Keeping me Busy in SWTOR…or Why This Blog Doesn’t Get Updated as Much as I’d Like

24 Sunday Jun 2012

Posted by in administrivia, commentary, community

≈ 2 Comments

My buddy Steve brought it to my attention that I just haven’t been updating the blog as frequently as I used to. And lest that perception be expressing itself to folks as a lack of interest in the game, I thought it would be a good time to catch folks up on what’s been keeping me busy SWTOR-wise, both in and out of game.

Many Alts, Handle it!

First and foremost, getting all of my alts transferred to their new servers then stalking tracking down their guilds and getting into the groove of the new server (including looking around for some new guilds for some of my alts) has taken more time than I would have expected. For those of you keeping track at home, here’s what my alt life looks like, in terms of guilds:

  • Canderous Ordo (PVE)
    • No Sleep Till Kessel a.k.a. #NSTK (Republic)
    • Nonstop Disco Jetpack (Imperial NSTK guild)
    • Ewok Dance Studio (alt guild for wee baby Republic toons w/@psynister, @fynralyl, and @the_wrenz)
  • Ebon Hawk (RP)
    • Republic Mercy Corps (Republic)
    • unguilded Imperial side and level 47 marauder needs a new home, PST!
  • The Bastion (PVP)

If you are in need of a guild on any of the above servers, follow the links and check ’em out. You’ll see that I haven’t dealt with my fourth and final server yet. Not sure if my level 17 sorcerer is going to be moved along or not at this point. It’s a little overwhelming already dealing with the above three active servers to be frank.

Same Story, Different Station

You are hopefully aware by now that this is not the only place to hear me ramble on about Star Wars: the Old Republic, yes? In addition to this blog, I also share through a number of other social channels:

But Wait, There’s More!

Then there’s a fun little SWTOR podcast you may have heard about — TOR Reporter. We record every Thursday night at 7:30 Pacific, with a live audience in our chat room. Prepping for the podcast is probably a prime contributor to my not blogging as often. Plus, I don’t want to steal the thunder from the podcast by preemptively publishing thoughts I’m planning to share there.

I hope to get the balance right on this in the future, and do a little more cross-pollination of topics from the podcast fleshed out in a little more detail here as well so that those of you who prefer your SWTOR news in text don’t miss out. I have to admit that recording the podcast is one of the highlights in my week each week– getting to chat about a game I love with other folks who feel the same way. It gives me a warm happy feeling, much like this blog…

So what’s been keeping you busy in and out of game as of late?

Server Transfers One Week In…

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in opinion

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

, ,

It’s been a week since I started my server transfer journeys. All four of my servers have gotten the nod, with the last server becoming eligible early this week. The screenshot above captures one of the nicest small touches that came about as a result of the server hopping: all my made by Anexxia gear, including pieces I’ve made for myself to wear, now bear the legend “The maker’s name has been worn completely off.” where my name used to be.

Guild Status

On my PvP server, The Bastion, I easily reconnected with my guild upon first post-transfer login. I am noticing, however, that it has been slow going for folks to transfer over. I think many folks are waiting for Patch 1.3 to hit before returning to the game and to the guild. The open question remains: will they stay put or continue to ebb and flow as each new MMO shiny object loses its lustre? And Republic side, we need to find a date and time for four officers to click the guild recharter. Oopsie!

My RP server, The Ebon Hawk, is already working on integrating all of us new transferees into the server community. In addition to having some server-wide events scheduled, which were mentioned in the most recent community wrap-up, they’ve started a server forum. I’m happy to see all this activity as it gives me hope I may yet find an active home for my level 47 Marauder and wee little Sorcerer alt. My teeny Sage is reguilded with the RMC, who is busy with many 16-man operations and seems to have picked right up from where they left off.

Last and not least, my PvE server, Candorous Ordo, is booming. I’ve been questing there Republic side and am cheered on by the sight of so many other players out in the worlds. My Sage has been making serious progress in her story, and is now 39 and midway through Hoth.

What’s Next?

I’m hoping that my PvE server ends up having a solid solution for my Empire characters. Specifically, to give me a place to server transfer my other Imperials to when we eventually, hopefully, can do paid server transfers from one server type to another. *crosses her fingers* I am also hopeful I will get in the occasional raid once my Sage hits 50. Trying to have some small, manageable and attainable goals!

What about you? How are you feeling about your servers now that the dust is settling?