**OFFICIAL** Star Wars: The Old Republic Thread

Page 86 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,231
117
116
actually they are underpowered as you get higher into the difficulty level.. the game gets MUCH harder into the 30s through 50s.. and that's where everything becomes a chore.

The game is balanced around the player and their companion and every class gets the same ones.. just in a different order..
so it's not really an imbalance issue.

I've only been able to get to level 14, so have not had a chance to experiecen any of the tougher parts yet. I'm also a noob at all of this stuff, so I very often have no idea what I am talking about. :D

Actually reading some of the posts has me a bit nervous as I am an extremely casual player and I also like to play solo most of the time; it seems like the later levels get quite difficult for players like me. That is part of what killed LOTRO for me, I just felt I could not get anything done on my own past level 35 or 40. Anyway, I'm still going to get this, I just hope I can deal with the later levels without having to spend 20 hours per week grouping with people.

KT
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
CVSin, actually everyone has access to a healing companion once they get their ship. The droid CN2 is a healing companion as well and a damn fine one. Since I was playing as a tank, and a well geared one, I was still soloing more than a few Heroic instances. At least the ones that state 2+. The heroic 4's I would always get stuck on the end boss if it had to be killed. This was up to Nar Shaddar planet at least. I never got to Tatooine.

But as a Jedi Shadow I could solo multiple elite spawns of my level or lower. It was never easy but I could still do it. How might you ask? Easy. First I use the tank pet I have and he's geared out very well. I take off his AoE abilities from use though. I then stealth and do a 60 seconds mez on one of the monsters in the group. Think of the rogue sap ability from WoW. I would then do my 8 second Lift on another and possibly double like 4 seconds stuns if I need to. I would then burst down as fast as I could as many of the remaining mobs. I try to mez the gold elites and kill the silver strongs as fast as possible. Once I killed a few and the others were about to wake up from the CC and I wouldn't be able to kill since I was low life I would pop Shadow Cloak. This is basically like the WoW rogue vanish ability. I instantly go into stealth mode and deactivate combat mode on my char. I would use Blackout, which made me impossible to detect while in stealth mode, and hit force run to get to a safe distance. Then I could heal up and go back in to clear up the spawn as needed. Since mobs don't respawn in instances it was a way to solo heroic instances as I basically chipped away at the big hard mob spawns a little bit at a time. Not easy and not fast, but it worked.

On bosses in the heroic instances I would switch out to my healing droid companion and hope the boss was a basic tank and spank. As long as my droid's healing could keep up with the bosses DPS that I was taking then it was doable.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
I've only been able to get to level 14, so have not had a chance to experiecen any of the tougher parts yet. I'm also a noob at all of this stuff, so I very often have no idea what I am talking about. :D

Actually reading some of the posts has me a bit nervous as I am an extremely casual player and I also like to play solo most of the time; it seems like the later levels get quite difficult for players like me. That is part of what killed LOTRO for me, I just felt I could not get anything done on my own past level 35 or 40. Anyway, I'm still going to get this, I just hope I can deal with the later levels without having to spend 20 hours per week grouping with people.

KT


No, the stuff meant to be hard is going to be hard. The solo stuff is still soloable. It does get a bit harder, but not impossible.
 

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
0
0
Yeah Mako is Op but the companions the republic side gets are inferior. They simply don't heal enough or do enough dps. I do have a bias view, I don't pug. The people I grouped with are the same ones I raided and grouped with in wow. We did the instance as 3 dps and a healer and breezed right through them. Yes I was over dramatic and they are better than your average novice. They are not better than people who have a year or two of wow like raid experience under their belt.

As a perm tester I have played every single class to 30+ I did not have any issues with comps on either side.. the only one I found to be buggy was the SW healer Comp as he tends to stop healing and stand around..

I got a L42 premade Shadow and her healer is flat awesome very impressed as that was a higher level companion. he not only awesome healing.. but a distract ability that CCs the mobs for me..

very very cool.
 

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
0
0
CVSin, actually everyone has access to a healing companion once they get their ship. The droid CN2 is a healing companion as well and a damn fine one. Since I was playing as a tank, and a well geared one, I was still soloing more than a few Heroic instances. At least the ones that state 2+. The heroic 4's I would always get stuck on the end boss if it had to be killed. This was up to Nar Shaddar planet at least. I never got to Tatooine.

But as a Jedi Shadow I could solo multiple elite spawns of my level or lower. It was never easy but I could still do it. How might you ask? Easy. First I use the tank pet I have and he's geared out very well. I take off his AoE abilities from use though. I then stealth and do a 60 seconds mez on one of the monsters in the group. Think of the rogue sap ability from WoW. I would then do my 8 second Lift on another and possibly double like 4 seconds stuns if I need to. I would then burst down as fast as I could as many of the remaining mobs. I try to mez the gold elites and kill the silver strongs as fast as possible. Once I killed a few and the others were about to wake up from the CC and I wouldn't be able to kill since I was low life I would pop Shadow Cloak. This is basically like the WoW rogue vanish ability. I instantly go into stealth mode and deactivate combat mode on my char. I would use Blackout, which made me impossible to detect while in stealth mode, and hit force run to get to a safe distance. Then I could heal up and go back in to clear up the spawn as needed. Since mobs don't respawn in instances it was a way to solo heroic instances as I basically chipped away at the big hard mob spawns a little bit at a time. Not easy and not fast, but it worked.

On bosses in the heroic instances I would switch out to my healing droid companion and hope the boss was a basic tank and spank. As long as my droid's healing could keep up with the bosses DPS that I was taking then it was doable.

The Droid is a VERY POOR healer.. not even close to the abilities of Mako or Quinn or any of the others.. yes he can do it but not well..

he is technically never even supposed to leave the ship is is really that piss poor of a companion.

the real healers you get are FAR more powerful.

and yes that is one of my FAVORITE classes hands down.. my Assassin is L40 and shes a monster.. however she is bugged and cannot even be logged in right now for over the last 2 weeks.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
The Droid is a VERY POOR healer.. not even close to the abilities of Mako or Quinn or any of the others.. yes he can do it but not well..

he is technically never even supposed to leave the ship is is really that piss poor of a companion.

the real healers you get are FAR more powerful.

and yes that is one of my FAVORITE classes hands down.. my Assassin is L40 and shes a monster.. however she is bugged and cannot even be logged in right now for over the last 2 weeks.

I only made it to 29 and still was on Nar Shaddar. I never had any other companions besides Qyzen Fess (starting consular tank companion) and CN2 (free ship droid healing companion).

As I said, CN2 was working for me to heal. He was no where near as good as a real healer for sure. That and he likes to stand right next to me in combat which means any AoE that is hitting me is hitting him. Still, he's allowed me to take down bosses that I couldn't have otherwise. I most certainly would love to get and try a REAL healer companion as you put it.
 

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
0
0
I only made it to 29 and still was on Nar Shaddar. I never had any other companions besides Qyzen Fess (starting consular tank companion) and CN2 (free ship droid healing companion).

As I said, CN2 was working for me to heal. He was no where near as good as a real healer for sure. That and he likes to stand right next to me in combat which means any AoE that is hitting me is hitting him. Still, he's allowed me to take down bosses that I couldn't have otherwise. I most certainly would love to get and try a REAL healer companion as you put it.

he comes late.. but WOW what an healer.. Name is Theran Codex and he has a dancing girl that distracts the mobs and CCs them.. awesome for a Shadow.. since while they are distracted you run up and back stab them.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
I will also state that if you kill just about everything along the way, do every quest, and mix in some PVP and flashpoint runs you will out level your quest area in the beginning FAST. I was finishing up Taris as a level 25. I am finishing up Nar Shaddar as a level 29. For reference Taris is suppose to be 17-20 and Nar Shaddar is 20-24 range.
 

SithSolo1

Diamond Member
Mar 19, 2001
7,740
11
81
lol I skipped Taris and went to Nar Shadda at 18, maybe that's why it seemed a little rough.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
lol I skipped Taris and went to Nar Shadda at 18, maybe that's why it seemed a little rough.

I just brought up the quest journal and looked at it to determine which quest was lower level. The Taris one was lower so I went there first. I didn't get my ship though until level 20 because I was doing every side quest on Corsucant as well as pretty much killing everything in my path. I also did a bit of PvP and got to valor rank 23 I think. You can level damn fast with PvP at low levels.


Like I said in PvP I am doing really darn good as a shadow. It's great as even 2v1 I can pop my cooldowns like Deflection and usually still do enough damage to take 1 person down. If I start getting overwhelmed and get low on life I can pop Shadow Cloak and Blackout with Force Speed to get away safely as long as I don't have a dot going on me which would break my stealth. My death count in PVP dropped significantly once I got those skills. Which is why being higher level in PVP warzones is soooo much better.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
he comes late.. but WOW what an healer.. Name is Theran Codex and he has a dancing girl that distracts the mobs and CCs them.. awesome for a Shadow.. since while they are distracted you run up and back stab them.

Yep. Found out after completing Nar Shaddaa main quest line you get him. After I did that, I was cruising around on my speeder going from planet to planet exploring. Had a grand ol' time looking for datacrons and just sight seeing last night. That balloon ride to get the two datacrons off Tattooine was silly. Oh well, allowed me to go make something to eat and eat it in the 45 minutes it took to ride the balloon to the destination.


From what I understand Bioware may do one more beta weekend before release. Supposedly they are setting up the game today for the general testers to finally test the "release" build that went to DVD already. There will be additional patches after that, but what they are testing right now is the final deal. This is a somewhat big deal because any changes they make here-after will be actual big patches. Patches are something they haven't tested yet as anytime they have a new build release they just give out the whole client again to be re-downloaded and over written.

As for having another beta test weekend, it would have to be this weekend, and we all get a chance at seeing the final game client.
 
Last edited:

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
0
0
Glad you liked the Shadow HP. I hope you are right that we are getting a new build patch today.. but they didnt post anything for us..

hit 30 on my 3rd char last light my Mar got her Lord title and got her jedi companion..

pretty big increase in damage at 30 especially with the saber you get from the quest..
its Minimum damage was what the max on the old saber was.. and it was a 25 saber.
 

crownjules

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2005
4,858
0
76
I had a greyed out play button issue until Sunday 1PM, so only got to play a few hours Sunday and last night before the beta was over. Got a Sith Marauder to level 12.

Pretty much the WoW/EQ paradigm that every MMORPG copies and then adds their own little touches in the hopes that will distinguish their game. Although, I will give Bioware a little more credit than most as voice acted dialog instead of quest boxes and the companion interactions and features are better than many added features. They do help to make the game feel more immersive. Combat is still the same old game of managing a bunch of cooldowns and timing their use. But the sounds and feel of it are a lot better and actually make you feel like you're fighting, a thing that many games fail to do.

I'm on the fence about purchasing, mostly due to the price. I don't if it's worth the money to me.
 

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
0
0
I had a greyed out play button issue until Sunday 1PM, so only got to play a few hours Sunday and last night before the beta was over. Got a Sith Marauder to level 12.

Pretty much the WoW/EQ paradigm that every MMORPG copies and then adds their own little touches in the hopes that will distinguish their game. Although, I will give Bioware a little more credit than most as voice acted dialog instead of quest boxes and the companion interactions and features are better than many added features. They do help to make the game feel more immersive. Combat is still the same old game of managing a bunch of cooldowns and timing their use. But the sounds and feel of it are a lot better and actually make you feel like you're fighting, a thing that many games fail to do.

I'm on the fence about purchasing, mostly due to the price. I don't if it's worth the money to me.

The melee chars in this game really are not fun to play till much later on.. L30-50 they start to get good and feel as good as the other classes int eh game.. they are late bloomers..

at L12 on 1 class ( the weakest class in the game btw) you didn't experience very much at all.
just the starter world and the BT most likely..

Wish you had had more time.
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
14,665
440
126
Glad you liked the Shadow HP. I hope you are right that we are getting a new build patch today.. but they didnt post anything for us..

hit 30 on my 3rd char last light my Mar got her Lord title and got her jedi companion..

pretty big increase in damage at 30 especially with the saber you get from the quest..
its Minimum damage was what the max on the old saber was.. and it was a 25 saber.

Well, let's just say a Bioware employee is in our guild :) And he happened to mention some things over our Mumble channel :) so while it's rumor I'd say it's a damn good likely to be true rumor.

I hadn't bothered with the Legacy stuff yet as there was really no time to mess with it. So no surname or that junk before the test ended last night.
 

CVSiN

Diamond Member
Jul 19, 2004
9,289
0
0
Well, let's just say a Bioware employee is in our guild :) And he happened to mention some things over our Mumble channel :) so while it's rumor I'd say it's a damn good likely to be true rumor.

I hadn't bothered with the Legacy stuff yet as there was really no time to mess with it. So no surname or that junk before the test ended last night.

well that's awesome then.. also hope they work out the issues with the L42 server as well..
wanted to do that for sure.
 

Anomaly1964

Platinum Member
Nov 21, 2010
2,460
4
81
I'm still gonna roll Sith Warrior Juggernaut, when it gets later in the game, I will be unstoppable...
 

paperfist

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
6,521
280
126
www.the-teh.com
Hey Keith, what server are you going to play on? It sounds like you have the same play style as me and if you live in England then my 1AM EST play times would work out great :D

Seriously, been looking around for a casual guild, but the trouble is they seem to be so casual that no one posts on their forums and it's hard to see what direction they are going. Also, I see a lot of guilds with 'scheduled play times". Do they really have designated time people in their guild have to play at? That's the one thing I like about MMOs, you don't feel like or can't play you don't turn it on. Your character will be just fine in the morning.

I'm still gonna roll Sith Warrior Juggernaut, when it gets later in the game, I will be unstoppable...

Same here, though I could kick myself for getting so engrossed in the story in beta that I only tried out that class. I've been getting a lot of penis envy reading about the other classes here and some of the other sites.
 
Last edited:

Anomaly1964

Platinum Member
Nov 21, 2010
2,460
4
81
My only issue with SWTOR is this...

...it's almost FOUR THOUSAND years before Episode I. So from SWTOR to Episode I, there were NO advances in technology?

I know it's not THAT big of deal and it would probably NOT be any fun if the technology were DUMBED DOWN but I always notice things like that.

I mean look at how much technology for mankind advances decade by decade, year by year, month by month at this point...

...yet in 4000 years, there seem to be very little changes in the SW Universe.
 

Nizology

Senior member
Oct 13, 2004
765
1
0
Rolled a BH Merc through the weekend and I'd have to say that class is damn fun. Almost all of the abilities are extremely satisfying. Love the versatility of the healing as well. Got to lvl 15.

Besides the surname, what else does the Legacy system bring?
 

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,231
117
116
My only issue with SWTOR is this...

...it's almost FOUR THOUSAND years before Episode I. So from SWTOR to Episode I, there were NO advances in technology?

I know it's not THAT big of deal and it would probably NOT be any fun if the technology were DUMBED DOWN but I always notice things like that.

I mean look at how much technology for mankind advances decade by decade, year by year, month by month at this point...

...yet in 4000 years, there seem to be very little changes in the SW Universe.

Well how come there was a seeeming downgrade in technology between episodes 1-3 and 4-6? Technology seemed far more advanced in 1-3. :colbert:

KT
 

KeithTalent

Elite Member | Administrator | No Lifer
Administrator
Nov 30, 2005
50,231
117
116
Hey Keith, what server are you going to play on? It sounds like you have the same play style as me and if you live in England then my 1AM EST play times would work out great :D

Seriously, been looking around for a casual guild, but the trouble is they seem to be so casual that no one posts on their forums and it's hard to see what direction they are going. Also, I see a lot of guilds with 'scheduled play times". Do they really have designated time people in their guild have to play at? That's the one thing I like about MMOs, you don't feel like or can't play you don't turn it on. Your character will be just fine in the morning.

I'm down for something casual, unfortunately I'm in Canada, so the timing could be off, but my timing is all over the place, so who knows.

I am all for playing with a casual group/guild, I just don't want to be yelled at for not playing the game properly. :D

KT
 

Sentrosi2121

Platinum Member
Aug 8, 2004
2,567
2
81
Keith, Paperfist, and anyone else interested.
I'm the Guild Administrator of the Dragon Wolves, a RP-PVP Sith guild.
We're going to go with a RP-PVP server, but we're not going to adhear to strict RP rulesets. We're only going there because history dictates there will be less dicks and assmunchers on a RP-PVP server. We're pretty casual about our playstyle. I'm not looking for hard committments either. The game is flexible enough that if we are running an operation we don't have to sit and wait for a tank or healer to come online. Props to Bioware for recognizing that. All I'm expecting is that you have fun with us and be respectful to other gamers.

Requirements:
Teamspeak 3
Sign up on our recruiting forums: http://www.dragonwolves.com/forums
I hope you consider the Dragon Wolves.
 
Last edited: