Star Wars: The Old Republic

Well, it's true to the setting. That's how the Republic uses its troops.

Like that Yoga guy said, "There is no impossible. There is only try or do not." I don't know, it was something like that.

Even in your free level 50 pvp gear? What spec are you?

So... back when I was subscribed I had a huge problem with constantly being underlevelled. I'd do all the solo content as a matter of course, generally none of the group comment because I don't like humans on the internet, and that plus a few space battles, pvp and guild/group instancing once in a blue moon would keep me at or a little bit behind the curve.

The FTP nerf on quest experience rewards is... a bit of a bummer. I'm sort of wondering what I'll wind up doing. I can't think I'm going to want to do group quests more now that I have ftp communication limitations when I disliked it already. And grinding just seems nightmarish given the tiny XP it gives. Plus on my Empire characters I generally don't do the skeeziest "put the nerve toxin in the orphanage's water supply" quests which makes matters even worse.

Several of the restrictions go away with a single points purchase. I was actually under the impression that former subscribers were automatically premium users, but I never unsubscribed so I can't test that myself.

XP rate isn't one of them, but you could theoretically buy XP boost items off the GTN I suppose.

Yeah there should be a quest (at the PVP terminal? In your mail? I forget how they send it) to get a full set of level 50 gear, or you can instead just take like 200k in credits. Either one should gear you up enough to finish the quest line I would think.

Well, various specs within classes are hilariously imbalanced, so there's that. For this sort of comparison you have to factor in

A: Build
B: Gear
C: Companion
D: Companion's Gear
E: Player skill with their build (it's trivially easy to get good results with pyro powertech. It's really hard to get good results with dps assassin since they have like 11 buttons and need to monitor 2 dots).

Hard to draw a firm conclusion. I'd guess it's a matter of boss imbalance, but that's just a guess.

I didn't have even a tiny bit of trouble with the final SI fight, Lum sux at games.

(My manquisitor is a tank assassin, it is REALLY hard to kill him.)

I don't know if it's changed since about 1.3, but back then tank shadow/assassin were crazy good at 50.

What was the spec that assassins used to be all like HURRRRRR in PVP and just spike you to death with 3000 DPS casts?

They were nerfed a bit, but they're still rad.

That was Lightning Sorcerers/TK Sages, when I played.

They could do that too, but I distinctly recall being killed in under 4 seconds by people wielding dual-bladed lightsabers also. This was with nearly full PVP gear on--not the top-of-the-line stuff but the next one down from that, which I think was fairly standard for those days.

SWTOR is still my mistress MMO, admittedly Mists has got me focused on WoW again so I haven't spent much time there lately. I'm kind of flabbergasted when people say the IA story is good, though. When does it start getting good? Maybe it's because my expectations were built up by everyone saying how great it is, but it's a predictable snoozefest so far. Granted, I'm not really into the whole secret-agent thing either. I remember she just finished getting the bug companion (what the heck is that about, too?).

On the contrary, everyone says Trooper is awful, yet the quest at the end of Act 2 was the most fun I've had in SWTOR thus far. I feel like it was the best use of companions and I got to do a lot of what I love most about being a Trooper: blowing stuff up.

I started the game with a BH, and my brother played an Agent. Got bored of the BH story pretty quick and went back a couple months ago to start an Agent. So much more fun to play than the BH, though the BH had some cool skills.

"Bug companion" is on Alderaan. That's not even to the first major twist.

So we are playing in a foursome with two friends. We have all sort of decided to be as douchey as possible, although not necessarily dark side. My (male) consular has wound up being the most hilariously insufferable I-am-always-right-when-will-you-assholes-learn Jedi ever. He's light side, but SUCH a dick about it. <3

I'm not sure I'm actually King Douchebag of the group, the others might feel otherwise, but I have never played someone so blatantly rude before. It's made the consular story more interesting, at least. :P

You're basically the Jedi version of Winchester from M.A.S.H.

EDIT: Actually, REALLY you're Young Master Vrook.

And I fucking loved Jedi Master Ed Asner.

So hey, I just dipped my toe into this for the first time and I'm surprised to find myself enjoying it after vowing to never touch WoW again over a year ago. It's fun to listen to the female smuggler talk and I will never get tired of running up behind evil jedi and booting them right in the jibblies.

The F2P sure is dumb, though. I paid for a month in advance since I figured I'd get 20 francs of time out of it and that seems to have been the right option since pretty much every tutorial is "This is how things work, except it sucks 25% more for F2P players". Also, I'm pretty much the only player character with green skin in the level 1-20 range, which is good for making me feel like a special snowflake but it blows my mind that they didn't include race/looks costumization in the cartel. In fact, there's absolutely nothing in the cartel that I want to buy with the 500 coins they gave me. How about an option to change your legacy name? Because I threw in the first thing I could think of just so I could actually see the menu and figure out what the legacy thing even is, probably like many other players.

It's good to see that there's a flashpoint queue but unless there's some option I'm missing, it always just queues me up for all flashpoints in my range. I'm pretty sick of Hammer Station and want to do more Athiss (it has more evil jedi to kick in the junk). There's no way to do that beyond assembling a group yourself, is there?

In fact, you can unlock individual race options for 600 CC each within your Legacy, but you have to create a character and get to the end of Chapter 1 to see it. I agree it would be a terrific thing to allow at character creation, but I guess it's intended as a subscriber incentive.

Incidentally, I always wondered what the point of unlocking "Human" was in the Legacy. Normally, getting to 50 in a race opens that race for all classes in both factions, while Humans can be anything from the start. Turns out Humans have a different unlock: +100 Presence for all characters. Almost makes me regret being so thoroughly pro-alien.

I have started playing this again. JK (47) and Trooper (34).

Is anyone on Begeren Colony? Have found no one willing to help with Heroics in the upper tiers.

I'm considering jumping to another server, but I have sooo much invested in crew skills on Begeren; not to mention mah character names.

So, where are all the cool kids?

Ebon Hawk for rp. I think the rest are on Harbringer?

Legacy unlocks at level 10 now I am pretty sure.

Also that +100 Presence bonus is amazing on subsequent characters.

Legacy does unlock at level 10 now. And presence hijinx are hilarious. Ingmar and I are a roving death machine, especially at lower levels, in a duo because of it.

That's not quite what I meant though. I was talking about post-creation race change, like WoW offers. I'm sure there are many people who start out F2P, subscribe after ten or so levels and then end up kinda wishing they weren't human like 99% of the early zone population. It's money left on the table, which kinda surprised me considering how aggressive the rest of the cartel monetization is.

I am 99% sure they're working on that stuff, along with paid server transfers and extra character slots. They're just not caught up with those kind of features, probably because of the semi-sudden swerve into F2P and the loss of a bunch of important people via layoffs.

Why you should play on The Harbinger (probably NSFW).

Also, why you shouldn't play on The Harbinger

at least it's not a gamorrean.

Responding late to this, but I'm leveling up a DPS spec Guardian (currently level 45), and the number of buttons I need to press isn't significantly higher than other classes I've played.

The Guardian rotation is seven abilities:

1. Sundering Strike
2. Master Strike
3. Plasma Brand
4. Overhead Slash
5. Blade Storm
6. Strike
7. Dispatch (Execute ability only usable when target <30% HP remaining)

For comparison, I've played Gunslinger DPS extensively. Both the Sharpshooter tree and the Dirty Fighting tree have an equal or greater number of abilities in their main rotation:

Sharpshooter:
1. Speed Shot
2. Aimed Shot
3. Trickshot
4. Charged Burst
5. Vital Shot
6. Flurry of Bolts
7. Quickdraw (<30% Execute)

Dirty Fighting:
1. Shrap Bomb
2. Vital Shot
3. Hemorrhagging Blast
4. Wounding Shots
5. Speed Shot
6. Aimed Shot
7. Flurry of Bolts
8. Quickdraw (<30% Execute)

Maybe it's different for Sentinels/Marauders, but I'm not seeing how DPS Guardian/Juggernaut is any more button-heavy than some other specs.

Heh, I have the cover toolbar completely disabled on my Gunslinger.

See I use a lot more then that on my Def speced Jug

I start off by useing Force Leap then the "Hit target while it's Movement is impared" ability.
Then use the PBAOE AOE attack
Then after the "hit target while movement is impared" has cooled down, I use Force Push then leap and use it again. (those are base abiliteis I believe so no reason not to be used by DPS spec?)
There's also force choke and pomel strike to work into the mix (pomel strike is from the def line, but choke is base class)
You aslo have the PBAOE Fear.
There's also the taunts plus the "You heal a slight amount while reducing threat while active" ability.

It looks like you're choosing not to use them as opposed to not having them. (unless there's some reason for not using them)
There's other situational abilities that I usualy don't work into the mix that I'm sure I'm forgetting (for instance, I hardly ever use the "Only damages impaired weak/strong mobs" ability)

No, I sometimes use those abilities too, but they're situational, not part of the main rotation. I have at least a dozen situational abilities on my Gunslinger I also use. In any case, I really haven't found JK to be more button-heavy than any other class I've played.