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Suggestion Box: Seasonal Events in SWTOR

February 24, 2012 by

If you’re in Australia you’re likely to hear nothing but debates over the leadership of the Government. So you can either run for parliament yourself or join the more interesting debate right here.

The question this week is on seasonal or one-off in-game events. BioWare haven’t ruled out having such events, so why not suggest your own event that you’d like to see in SWTOR.

I personally would like to see Cushion Appreciation Week. Imagine an arena PvP event with a couple of hundred C2-N2s battling it out – you know it makes sense.

Over to you!

Filed Under: News, Suggestion Box Tagged With:

How to Solo Ilum’s Poisonous Strategy Quest

February 24, 2012 by

Aussie gamer Xterminatz has made three nifty little videos showing you how to solo (with your companion of course) the Level 50 Heroic quest Poisonous Strategy. Have a look for yourself:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Filed Under: How-To, News Tagged With: , ,

Media launch of SWTOR on March 1st: ask Gabe a question

February 23, 2012 by

While there may be no public launch event for SWTOR’s local launch, EA Australia and Bioware are still committed to making a splash on March 1st. There’s a small press event in Sydney on that day with a big guest: BioWare’s Lead PvP  Designer: Gabe Amatangelo.

TOROZ will be at the launch and will have some time with Gabe, so we’d love to have some questions from the community to ask him. If you’ve got a PvP question you’d like answered, post it in the comments and we’ll select the best for the brief interview we’ll be doing.

We’ll also bring you plenty of photos from the event, so make sure you check back next Thursday night!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , ,

Diplomatic Investigations: Jedi Sage and Sith Sorcerer Tactics

February 23, 2012 by

It’s with a great deal of pleasure we introduce Tim Buchalka to the TOROZ team. You can find out lots more about Tim here – but suffice it to say he’s a rather dedicated connoisseur of the Inquisitor and Consular classes, which will be the focus of this column. We’ve called it Diplomatic Investigations as both words are synonyms (sort-of) for the Consular and Inquisitor. Nerdy grammar humour indeed.  Anyway, please make Tim welcome and post your comments below!

 

Today I am going to focus on the Jedi Sage/Sith Sorcerer, which are the “other” lightsaber wielding classes in SWTOR. In case you are unaware, when you create a Jedi Consular or Sith Inquisitor character in SWTOR, at or around level 10 when you do your advanced training, you get the choice of  becoming a Jedi Sage/Sith Sorcerer or Jedi Shadow/Sith Assassin.

The Sage/Sorcerer classes are almost identical other than the fact one is Jedi and the other Sith – their skills and abilities are very similar (albeit it with different names) and the damage they do is also similar.

I’ll focus on the Shadow/Assassin in future articles but for now lets talk tactics for the Sage/Sorcerer.

Basic Attack Strategies

One of the biggest things to remember is that despite how cool the lightsaber looks, it does very little damage – I recommend you don’t use it.  Don’t worry, you will get to at least see it in your hand, you just don’t get to fight with it  🙂

It’s important to remember that these guys are not tanks, have light armour only, and are not melee characters.   Typically you will get best results sending your companion in to do all the “dirty work” with your enemies i.e. melee attacks;  leaving you to stand back (usually a long way back) and attack from a position of relative safety.

Incidentally, don’t be afraid to turn and run if your companion gets defeated.    You can always come back for another shot later – a Sage/Sorcerer hero fighting to the death without a companion usually becomes a dead hero very quickly!

My first character on SWTOR was an imperial agent Operative, which is very much a melee character.  After playing that for some time, when I swapped over to my Sage and Sorcerer (I am levelling both at present) it took a while for it to sink in that I should not be trying to get involved in melee. In fact, when I played my first Flashpoint (Black talon) I was asked why I was using my lightsaber in combat. After being asked, I actually took a look at the damage it was doing and it was very minimal compared to my other ranged attacks. I suggest you do the same, do away with the lightsaber in fights.

Stuns/Interrupts

One other important tactic is the use of stuns/interrupts and slow attacks during fights, especially with bosses. I’m talking here about the Mind Snap, Force Stun and Force Slow if you are a Jedi Sage or Jolt, Electrocute or Shock attacks if you are a Sith Sorcerer.

You may not have noticed but the harder to kill elite characters and bosses often have special attacks that usually do significantly more damage than their regular ones. If you can prevent these attacks altogether (or interrupt them if they have already started) it can spare you or your companion a significant amount of damage. This is even more important in flashpoints when every enemy is that much harder to defeat.

Watch for the blue bar on screen (below the red health indicator on your enemy).  If you see a blue bar moving from left to right it means a special attack is being charged – now is the time to issue a Mind Snap or a Jolt. Do that before the blue bar gets to the right hand side and it means you have prevented the attack from starting (also stopping the enemy from using that attack for 4 seconds). If it has already been cast you may see a blue bar moving from right to left (if it’s a damage over time attack).  Your interrupt will stop it dead in its tracks, meaning the rest of the damage is not inflicted.

See the image below of my Sage attacking a Betterlife Security Chief where he has already used his special attack (you can see the blue bar just above my companions).  It also serves as a reference of how far I suggest you stand away from the main fight.  No need to be any closer than absolutely necessary.

Likewise, stuns and slows do what they suggest they will – they can stun an enemy (preventing them from moving or attacking) or slow their speed down, allowing you (and your companion) to get some extra attacks in while it is in force. Most of these attacks have a cooldown before they can be reissued (for example Jolt/Mind Snap is 12 seconds) so in a big fight be sure to check when you can re-issue it. I’ve used this tactic in big battles with good effect.

Healing

I used to think this was a given but I have done a lot of flashpoints and teamed up with other Sage or Sorcerer players and I see them often not healing their companions. They just let their companion fight to the death and don’t attempt to heal them.  As a result they cannot handle the bigger fights easily or they can get overwhelmed if larger numbers of the enemy are involved.

The thing to remember with the Sage and the Sorcerer is that it’s the companion taking all the damage (Qyzen Fess if you’re a Sage or Khem Val if you are a Sorcerer).  These companions are good at holding aggro, ensuring the enemies keep attacking them rather than you. As a result it makes sense to heal them when their health is starting to get low, because if they are defeated guess who is going to be attacked next? I typically monitor the health of my companion during fights and when his health has dropped to around 25 percent or less, I stop attacking and focus on healing him.

With a boss fight I usually start healing when the health has dropped 40-50 percent since Bosses tend to do more damage and the more powerful healing spells take a while to cast.  The last thing you want to do is stop attacking to heal your character but find you have left it too late and he is defeated while you are still casting.  Not only have you lost the companion, but you have also not been inflicting any damage while you have been trying to heal. It can be a little unnerving focusing on healing when your companion is in a fight with 2-3 enemies and your natural instincts are to fight, but the thing to remember is, if your companion is alive its likely you are too! It can take a while to get the timing right but it’s an important skill to learn and will really help you in the tougher fights.

 

And as mentioned early, because you are a long way from the action (well out of melee range) – if it appears you cannot save your companion and looks unlikely that you are going to win, turn around, cast Force Speed and get out of there fast!

Companions Weapons and Armour

You should be continually upgrading your companion’s armour and weapons.  This ensures that they can inflict and absorb a lot of damage.  It also increases the threat level of your companion making it more likely he will be attacked and not you. It’s not uncommon in a big fight to find an enemy who is attacking you suddenly turn and race to attack your companion.  Some of this is because they have good armour and weapons, but also Qyzen and Khem Val both have good AOE (Area of Effect taunts) which they will use to ensure enemies attack them and not you. As a worse case scenario you can cast something like a Cloud Mind, which reduces your threat level, but I almost never need to use this.

Remember the Force Armor/ Static Barrier

A cool defence against damage is Force Armor (Jedi Sage) and Static Barrier (Sith Sorcerer).  This protects you from a high amount of damage for 20 seconds but also has a 20 second cool down. My rotation before attacking usually consists of casting this first, then instructing my companion to begin an attack, followed by casting a ranged attack with a long activation time like the Jedi Sage’s Mind Crush. That way, in most fights my companion has reached the enemy as my first ranged attack hits them, my shields (Force Armor or Static Barrier) are up, and I am in the position to start my attack with instant ranged attacks.

 

So there you go.   These are pretty basic tips I know, but I have found them to be quite valuable and they collectively helped me get out of some tricky situations, sometimes when the odds are stacked against me.

I hope you enjoyed this article.  I’ll be back next week with more Consular and Inquisitor tips.  If there is anything specific you would like me to cover, or have any comments feel free to leave your thoughts below, I would love to hear from you!

 

Filed Under: Class Columns, Consular, Inquisitor, News Tagged With: , ,

Things to do while servers are down: 22nd Feb edition

February 21, 2012 by

While those interminable hours are passing as the next patch is installed for our enjoyment, you need to find something fun to do.

Some would suggest doing something non-SWTOR related, but we beg to differ. Here’s some SWTOR things you can do to pass the time:

1. Find out lots more about your companion with Simon’s massive companion database

2. Suggest a topic for us to cover in this weekend’s Flash Point podcast, Australia and New Zealand’s number 1 podcast. Ok, that may be a lie.

3. Vote in our poll on oceanic servers

4. Express your interest in writing for TOROZ!

5. Have a laugh at some quality Star Wars humour

6. If you’re a Facebooker, join the SWTOR Gamers of Oceania group or even like our Facebook page

Filed Under: Community, News

You, Robot – Part 3: Your companion as a magic elf

February 20, 2012 by

Welcome to the final instalment of a three-part series on companions. You can view Part 1 here and Part 2 here. You can also view the most amazing Companion Stats Uber-Mega-Omnibus right here!

Back in prehistoric times, before Star Wars, there were other stories. Hard to believe, but there you have it. One of them involved an old shoemaker and some magical elves who made shoes while he slept. That kind of characterises how crafting works in SWTOR. You get to sit around ogling holodancers or arguing with your friends about which of you has the higher midiclorian count, while your trusty companions go off on their own little adventures only to return with… well, whatever you sent them for. Usually.

Before we get into the meat and potatoes, just be aware that this is for those who haven’t looked into crafting in much detail. If you’ve played an MMO before, you have some idea how this gig works. Having said that you might find a few handy tips too. I’ll also stress that since we are only two months into the game’s life, tweaks and nerfs are inevitable and what you become used to may not stick around in its current form (hello Slicers!). I’d also suggest you have a look at the improved ‘Companions Guide’ for a comprehensive overview.

In the Crew Skills system there are three classes: Crafting (making stuff), Gathering (we find stuff), Mission (they find stuff). So what’s with the pronouns? With Gathering tasks you can collect materials as you run around the world OR send a crew member on their own. With Mission tasks, only your companion goes. You aren’t involved other than to delegate the task. So if you despise the tedium of having to stop and fill your pockets during a quest then this is, on the face of it, a dream come true. No more dirty fingernails. There’s a down side though – each mission costs money and your companions will sometimes fail.

So once you hit level 10 and your faction’s fleet hub, you get to select your Crew Skills. It’s worth talking to ALL the trainers (cancel out of each dialogue) as you’ll get XP for every one of them. But which skills you choose can be very dependent on how you want to use the system. You can go the obvious route and pick one of each type (preferably compatible ones) so you can become a one person production line. But you don’t have to do it this way. If you prefer you can have three mission skills or three gathering skills or one crafting and two of either. Before you ask, you can’t have more than one crafting skill. If you’re not sure what skills to go for, check out the attached spreadsheet for a few clues.

Once you’ve made your choice, it’s time to start delegating. Here are a few general pointers.

  • Gathering/Mission tasks – crew members can only do one task at a time, but you can have multiple crew members deployed simultaneously
  • Crafting tasks – you can stack up to five tasks, per crew member.
  • Choose wisely – some companions are more adept at certain tasks than others. Try to match them with the task; the quality/yield will improve (see the ‘Companions Guide’)
  • Love and other mistakes – Affection matters, the more they like you, the better the results.
  • Get some sleep – you don’t need to be playing for your crew to be working. When you log back in they’ll proudly present you with the fruits of their labour. Some missions are 30-40 minutes, perfect just before you log off.
  • Put it in the bank – your crew can access any crafting material you’ve put in the bank. You don’t need to lug the Bronzium around with you.
  • Everything on the menu – just because your trainer offers a recipe doesn’t mean you need to learn it. If it’s not something you can use now or shortly, don’t learn it. Save money and avoid cluttering your crafting menu with a growing list of gray items.
  • Keep ’em busy – it’s easy to get your Gathering and Mission points badly out of whack since Gathering is something you do yourself as a matter of course, where as Mission tasks have to be manually delegated. This becomes less of a problem once you get your ship. Send that darned robot on all the three minute missions. Why three minute missions? Because they’re cheaper, quicker and still give you the points.
  • Take it apart – use reverse engineering – By breaking down items similar to the ones you can craft (either things you make or have collected) into their constituent materials you gain raw material and the possibility of earning a bonus recipe, some of which are rare.

So now you’re all skilled up, is it worth your time? That depends what you want from it, but here’s a few things to consider:

  1. Endgame – very few crafting skills are much use once you get to level 50, with the exception of Biochem. To be honest, it’s debatable how useful some of them are even before this point because, at the time of writing, you’ll often get better gear through PvP, Warzones and Flashpoints. However Georg Zoeller has indicated that Bioware intend to make ALL crafting professions ‘fully endgame viable’. Tweaking is supposed to have started in 1.1.2, but no word on any changes yet.
  2. Print your own money –  there are two issue here. Whether you can make anything worth buying and whether anyone can find it if you do. Right now the Galactic Trade Network (GTN) is a capricious beast and searching on it is less ‘eBay’ and more ‘newspaper classified listings circa 1976’.
  3. Boost your alts – This is probably the most practical use for crafting at the moment. After all, your alts will eventually share the same surname. Why not let your virtual clan do the equivalent of having your electrician brother-in-law put in a new powerpoint for a slab? If you’re playing alts from a range of different classes, this very quickly makes sense, since certain crafting skills are more appropriate for certain classes. The downside is you will level up more slowly since you’re splitting your time across multiple characters.

Ultimately crafting isn’t for everyone, but if you’re inclined to give it a go it won’t be a waste of your time so long as you use it strategically and understand its limitations. Also bear in mind that things are going to keep changing as Bioware try to balance the economy. For better or worse, the real magical pixies aren’t your companions, they’re the shadowy figures in Austin studying metrics and playing with magical spreadsheets.

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With:

Server maintenance: Wednesday 22nd February

February 19, 2012 by

This week’s scheduled maintenance is a day later and three hours longer. coming in at seven hours. Although no details are given I’d be guessing on Patch 1.1.4 going live . Full details below on maintenance times, but the local time conversions are:

AEDT: 7pm Wednesday night to 2am Thursday morning

AWST: 4pm to 11pm Wednesday night

NZDT: 9pm Wednesday night to 4am Thursday morning.

Scheduled Maintenance

Date: Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

Time: 2AM CST (12AM PST/3AM EST/8AM GMT/9AM CET) until 9AM CST (7AM PST/10AM EST/3PM GMT/4PM CET)

All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than seven hours.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

Filed Under: Maintenance and Downtime, News Tagged With:

Quick Start Guide: Maps and Navigation

February 19, 2012 by

BioWare continue to trickle out their video Quick Start Guides, this time covering maps and navigation. These are very much aimed at new players, so don’t expect too many revelations. It covers the bases of current map functionality but it again highlighted for me the shortcomings of the current feature set – something we’ve covered before. I’m sure map improvements are on the development roadmap for SWTOR – there’s too many enhancements for there not to be work being done.

Watch the Quick Start Guide on maps for yourself here if you like – hopefully these guides will continue to expand and be a key part of the game’s initial learning curve.

Filed Under: How-To, News Tagged With:

Different perspectives on Chewbacca

February 18, 2012 by

A funny meme has popped up over recent weeks which I love, but some people are already damn sick of.  It’s the What People Think I Do schtick, and it’s been everywhere. (Some good non-Star Wars examples can be found here, here and here).

So it was with some pleasure I saw this one:

If you didn’t get it, then you didn’t check out the other examples I linked above. Go do your homework then have a laugh!

[via David K and Dark Horse Comics]

Filed Under: Humour, News Tagged With:

TOROZ is looking to expand its writing team

February 18, 2012 by

It’s that time of the year again where we search around for anyone wanting to write their own column on the game they love. As the game’s grown, so has the range of topics we have to cover.

So we’re looking for people interested in getting their writing thang on. Here’s who we’re looking for:

1. Someone who plays SWTOR – you don’t need to be hard-core by any means, but a good familiarity with the game is a must.

2. Someone who writes well – don’t be TOO hard on yourself here. Your work will be edited for the odd typo or grammatical error, which is fine. All we ask is that you can string sentences together in an engaging way and not require extensive re-writing / correction by your friendly editor.

3. Someone who writes regularly – we’d be looking for people that can contribute a minimum of a 400-600 word article each week. Fortnightly gigs will be seriously considered as well.

4. Someone who has a volunteer sense of spirit: unfortunately TOROZ is financially  a loss-making outfit, albeit a successful one with lots of traffic. If revenue increases, you WILL be sharing in that equally with the other writers on the team. In the meantime, expect the odd bit of swag or attendance at a SWTOR-related event representing TOROZ, if the opportunity arises. And yes, you do have a byline to tout to much richer publications than our humble selves. Finally, you’re welcome to have a link back to your own blog or related web undertaking in each of your articles.

As far as topics go, we’re looking for people interested in writing on:

1. A regular Consular / Inquisitor column. You don’t have to be playing both, will adjust the scope of the column around what you play. (UPDATE: this position now filled)

2. A regular Agent / Smuggler column (UPDATE: this position now filled)

3. A regular healing column covering all the healing classes

4. A New Zealand focused column

5. A SWTOR-related webcomic (if you’re an artist looking for a writer, drop us a line)

6. A machinima column with some good embeds to YouTube / Vimeo etc

7. A guild / raid progression column (UPDATE: this position now filled)

8. Any innovative idea you want to put forward!

So if you’d like to express interest, here’s what you do:

1. Use our contact form and provide the following info:

– ideally submit a sample of your writing or at least a pitch on what you’d like to write and why

– tell us a little bit about yourself – similar in vein to the bios on our About page.

– what day and time of the week is best for you to submit a column

2. Wait patiently for us to get back to you – it should only take a day or two.

3. See points 1 and 2.

Please, have a think about getting involved – don’t be too harsh on your writing ability. Leave that to us!

 

Filed Under: Community, News

Community Q&A: world events coming soon

February 18, 2012 by

The second SWTOR community Q&A is up on the official site, and it covers some good ground. The ones that particularly caught my eye were:

1. World events are coming soon

2. A mobile app for crew skills is something being looked at, albeit with no ETA

3. RP’ers rejoice – chat bubbles are on the way, but after GUI customisation is delivered

Here’s the full transcript:

DarthBelkar: Can we look forward to server-wide special seasonal / short-term events?

Daniel Erickson: Yes! Expect them to fit into the world and setting, involve a fair bit of discovery, and offer special rewards that will be there one day and then gone forever. And expect them soon.

 

Darthinfimus: Do you plan to implement a /roll or /random command for use in master looter situations?

Damion Schubert: Diceslingers of the world rejoice! /roll has already been implemented on our internal development servers and should be coming to you guys Real Soon Now (in an upcoming weekly patch).

 

Relayinabox: Are there any plans for a show/hide companion headgear option?

Damion Schubert: Yep, we have plans. It won’t be in Game Update 1.2, but is currently in the works.

 

NiklasWB: When will you make it possible for Force-using characters to pull up/down their hoods on their robes?

Damion Schubert: This is in the works now. It won’t be in Game Update 1.2, but should get done in the next major update after that. And yes, we will extend this functionality to your Force-slinging companions as well.

 

ehlnofey: Will there be any changes/improvements made to the Galactic Trade Network system, and when will it be implemented?”

Damion Schubert: We know that the GTN needs a lot of love, and work is currently underway to improve this. Watch this space for more news!

 

GnovaD: Are there any plans to introduce mobile apps to the game? Eg. Use smart phone/tablet to send companions on missions while offline.

Damion Schubert: Let’s just say that this has always been a dream of mine for crew skills – it’s almost as if this design was created specifically with this in mind, doesn’t it? Good news, sometimes dreams do come true! The bad news is that I have no ETA for you, though, as this is a significant technical endeavor.

 

Bobonar:  Will we be able to take the modifications out of our endgame pvp-sets and put them into a set that we like better (design-wise) and keep the bonuses?

Emmanuel Lusinchi: Yes, the set bonus will be carried by Armoring mods that work just like regular mods except that they only fit into specific types of items, such as chest items or boots items. So, for example, the set bonus from a chest piece can be moved to another chest piece, and the set bonus from a helmet can be moved to another helmet.

 

HollowPoint: There has been a large push in the community for chat bubbles, especially with a toggle option for those who don’t want them. Is a chat bubble system in the works? If so, when can we expect it to be implemented?

Damion Schubert: They’re definitely on the list. We’ve got many active roleplayers in the dev team and chat bubbles have always been important to us. We actually had chat bubbles in beta, but there was unfortunately some serious performance issues that our implementation caused that, for example, made things really suck in warzones and the fleet. They’ll be coming soon, but in priority, the GUI team is focused first on GUI customization. I’ll have a better idea of timing once we get past that. And yes, for people who hate them, whenever we do them, they’ll be toggleable.

 

RuQu: Can you provide some details on Healer class design philosophy? Commando/Scoundrel AoE does not scale with group size due to player caps. Are they not intended to fill the raid-healer role? Scoundrels can be highly efficient, but have no tools for doing a short burst of healing.

In short, what is the design intention for each of the healers, and is it intended for them to be balanced so that any possible combination is competitive in Operations, or is a certain mix expected?

Georg Zoeller: Our stance is that all full healer specs should be viable for all type of content, which is the case, even for 16 man Operations. Our own players have no issues clearing any of the content in the game, on all difficulty levels, with any healer spec. Data from the Live game shows Operations, at all sizes, being successfully run with Commando and Scoundrel healers. It is expected for certain Operations bosses to create challenges for different healer archetypes (e.g. due to mobility requirements), but overall, every healer archetype is capable of successfully healing through any Operations and Flashpoint content in the game (currently and in the future).

With regards to your question about Commando/Scoundrel Area of Effect healing not scaling to group size, please understand that no heal, on any class, scales with group size. The most powerful Area of Effect heals in the game (Salvation/Revivification) affects up to 8 players, but does not scale with group size. These abilities are very costly, have an activation time requirement and require the targets to stand in a localized area for ten seconds to receive the full benefit. We plan on improving the overall Area of Effect healing performance of the Mercenary/Commando in the next major Game Update (1.2) by increasing the number of targets affected by Kolto Missile/Kolto Bomb.

As for Scoundrels having no tools for short burst healing, we don’t agree with that assessment. A scoundrel, for example, is capable of producing rather significant burst healing output by using Upper Hand gained from Underworld Medicine or Kolto Injection to trigger an instant Emergency Medpack or Surgical probe when needed. That said, we certainly think there’s room for improvements (and our upcoming Game Update 1.2 has a sizeable chunk of such improvements). For example, we are shifting the healing created by the Kolto Cloud ability to be front loaded in 1.2 to allow it to act as an emergency Area of Effect healing tool.

Finally, the perception of a specific class being not desirable can also be affected by the desirability of other classes. For example, Sage/Inquisitor healers are currently able to exceed our intended healing performance at times by affecting multiple heals with the same Conveyance/Force Bending buff. Game Update 1.2 will remove the ability to do so.

 

Fu-bear: Can you please confirm the exact mechanics behind Taunts? The tooltips purely state that it forces a mob to attack for X seconds, yet I’ve read reports that the skill appears to equalise threat like a traditional taunt. Can you clarify this?

Georg Zoeller: Taunts work in two ways. First, they instantly put you on top of the target’s threat list. Then, they place a short duration effect on the taunted target forcing them to attack you. Assuming that you then lose threat (say, you just stand there) the NPC will be forced to attack you for the duration of the Taunt. Afterwards, the AI will resume attacking targets based on threat order. If another Taunt is applied after yours, the most recently applied Taunt takes precedence.

Please note this is assuming regular threat rules – there are certain situations in the game, especially unique boss fights, which may cause NPCs to specifically ignore targets. In these cases, an ignored target will not be able to gain threat even with a taunt. In general, these situations are messaged to the player through effects on their buff bar – something we’re looking to make more visible in the future.

 

Gladoss, titdiscus, Leoran: What do you plan to against Warzones’ AFK, more particularly about players who leave Warzones ? Will there be sanctions for this type of behavior?

Gabe Amatangelo: It is not sanctioned behavior. In Game Update 1.2 we will be making changes to the Warzone rewards system, which will de-incentivize this type of behavior. This will include the removal of the interim bag/quest system, the introduction of the direct purchase of gear from Warzone and Ranked Warzone commendations, 14 new objective-based medals and participation scaling the rewards. Additionally, players will have the option to vote kick idlers. Kicked players will not be able to re-queue for several minutes.

 

Lexiekaboom: 16 man Operations are much harder than 8 man Operations (to the point where most guilds can easily clear hard mode 8 man before being able to clear 16 man easy mode) but there is no loot difference at all to doing them. It’s better to send your 16 man raid force to clear two 8 man instances .Is this oversight or design? What will be done to offset this in the future?

Gabe Amatangelo: This is not per design.  The teams have been addressing this in the weekly patches to some degree and more so in Game Update 1.2.  It is intended that 16 player mode is slightly easier than 8 player mode due to the fact that getting and coordinating 16 players is a larger hurdle in and of itself.

 I want an iPad Crew Skills app, and I want it now dammit!
Filed Under: News Tagged With:

SWTOR Patch 1.1.4 notes

February 17, 2012 by

Time for another patch! 1.1.4 is about to hit the public test server.Read on below for the list of changes – it’s encouraging that the list of fixes seem to be getting shorter – or am I dreaming?

Star Wars™: The Old Republic™ – 1.1.4 Patch Notes

Because development is ongoing during testing, it should be noted that all changes and updates listed in the patch notes should be considered incomplete and are subject to change or removal before release to the live servers. The Public Test Server patch notes will be provided in English. The final release notes will be provided in English, French, and German when the content is moved to live servers.
General

  • The key formerly bound to /bug can now be mapped to any action and no longer opens the /bug window. The command is no longer able to be bound to a quickslot, but player can still type /bug in chat to open a new bug report.

Classes and Combat
General

  • Using abilities with indirect targeting (such as area of effect abilities) will no longer cause players to be flagged for PvP if a PvP-flagged player from the opposing faction is within the ability’s range, and the ability will have no effect on the PvP-flagged player.

Imperial Agent
Operative

  • Medical Therapy: Kolto Probe and Recuperative nanotech will now properly benefit from this skill.

Bounty Hunter
Powertech

  • Carbonize: PvP armor for Combat Tech will no longer prevent this skill from stunning enemies.

Flashpoints and Operations
Operations
Eternity Vault

  • Casting Mind Trap will no longer cause Soa to lose threat against his primary target.

Karagga’s Palace

  • G4-B3 Heavy Fabricator now has fewer hit points in Normal Mode.

Items
Vendors

  • “Show Usable” now properly filters to only show equipable items.

Missions and NPCs
Missions
Republic

  • Unlikely Allies: Resetting no longer requires players to abandon and re-acquire the mission in order to complete it.

PvP
Warzones
General

  • Fixed a queue interface exploit that allowed players to bring additional players into a warzone. While imbalances can still happen under specific circumstances, the issue can no longer be intentionally triggered by players in this way. *UPDATED*

Alderaan Civil War

  • The Eastern Turret no longer fires twice under some circumstances when it is captured by the Imperials.

UI
General

  • Added a /version command.
  • Added several new preferences for cooldown appearance:
    • Show Ready Flash: Toggles a bright flash when an ability finishes cooldown.
    • Show Global Cooldown Ready Flash: Toggles a bright flash when an ability finishes global cooldown.
    • Cooldown Style: Changes the art style for the cooldown graphic.
    • Global Cooldown Style: Changes the art style for the global cooldown graphic.
    • Show Cooldown Timer: Toggles cooldown time text on top of the ability icon in the quickbar.

Bug Fixes

  • Sorting will now function properly in the Guild Window.
  • Items placed in a quickbar are no longer removed when training abilities.
  • Using Shift + Right Click to split a stack of usable items will no longer cause the item to be used.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

  • Players will no longer experience occasional disconnection when purchasing Crafting Materials from the GTN.
Filed Under: News, Patch Notes Tagged With:
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