5861

Sorry, yeah, this is correct.

5862

Man I have a lot of Alts in this game already.

I must say, so far the stories on the Imperial side are far more interesting that on the Republic side. The Imperial Agent and Sith Sorceror stories are both very very interesting. The jedi counsellor or whatever he’s called is…well, boring to be honest.

I’ve tried out a healer now, Imperial Agent, and it may be because he’s only lvl 21, but man its hard to keep energy to heal people in Heroics. Of course, it helped once we get a main tank designated who did the pulling, and people tried to do it “the right way”, but still - with the way energy is set up, once get to the bottom of energy, its pretty damn hard to get back up unless your skill is ready to do it for you.

5863

IA healing changes utterly at level 30. Once you get Surgical Probe (medium-sized heal, instant, consumes a TA), keeping a single target up becomes very easy.

In the meantime, a few energy-management tips:

  • You can stack your HoT twice. One recast will then refresh the full stack, so be sure to watch the timer

  • Never be idle. Diagnostic Scan is the auto-attack for healing. If you’re doing nothing else, scan the tank (or move in to shiv something and get a TA)

  • Flash Bang can be a huge energy saver by preventing damage from adds

  • Don’t go below 60 energy unless it’s an emergency. Resist the urge to top people off unless the encounter calls for it.

Again, though, it’s at 30 when the class takes off. When you can follow every Kolto Injection with an instant, free Surgical Probe on a tank with a full stack of HoT’s running, they stay up.

AoE healing will remain a problem ;)

5864

I did a bunch of the Heroic quests on Balmorra last night in a 3 Operative, 1 Sith Assassin group. All tanks or healers and best of all, all with stealth. It was a lot of fun being a secret Empire spec ops squad with a Sith to back us up.

Actually the Operative is probably the most fun class I’ve played in an MMO. Stealth, healing, a bit of crowd control, plenty of damage and a tanky first companion. The stealth feels especially good in letting you feel a bit in character on missions as well, when you’re supposed to infiltrate a top secret somewhere, you can actually infiltrate it rather than just slowly murdering everyone in small groups in standard MMO fashion.

5865

Definitely agree about the operative. Lots of fun. I was grouping last night and we aggroed too many baddies at one point and everyone died except me as the last one standing. I held my own a little after healing up and doing damage and got it down to one enemy left before I had to force stealth and run away, leaving everyone in shock at how survivable I was lol

It helped that I sliced the one droid and then used my other CC for time to heal up. :)

5866

Agreed so much. Emergency Medpack (republic version) is a game-changer. It was difficult to heal up until then.

I’ll echo the other comments that Operative (Scoundrel) is pretty fun. Way better than Guardian, which is super weak.

5867

I really enjoyed the starter planet, but now that I’ve gotten to Coruscant, the game is wearing on me. There’s too much running around at that level, and the planet feels incredibly large … and empty.

The only thing keeping me going is having Timothy Omundson for a companion. They never released the gay romance options, did they? :(

5868

I believe that’s planned for the Gay Romance expansion.

5869

The planets get larger and even more empty. Really.

5870

Larger, and in the case of the really large ones a bit less object-dense, but I found Coruscant to be boring and draggy in a way that Taris, Tatooine and Aldaraan weren’t. Nar Shaddaa I’d put about alongside coruscant but for more for plot objections.

5871

If you make the planets less “empty,” they become even more corridor-shooter like, and there’s no sense of mobility or exploration because you’re moving two steps, fighting a group of mobs, then moving two steps, whereupon the first group respawns. OTOH, you don’t want them too vast either.

5872

The planets frequently take too long. I have yet to come to a planet that hasn’t outworn its proverbial welcome when I was done with the quests on it.

You don’t feel that you’ve accomplished anything until you’re done with one (and some of them have immediate bonus quests following that).

There’s no good reason for this structure. It would have made much more sense to send someone to a planet for a few quests, then send them off-world to a different planet for a few, then to another planet. A lot of running around, yes, but you’d never get sick of a planet under that structure.

They already have several planets that have fairly well segregated areas in terms of considerably different levels of enemies. There are areas of Nar Shaddaa that are in the low 20s and others in the low 30s (the latter being the bonus area). Same with Alderaan (low 30s and low 40s for bonus area) and Hoth (high 30s and high 40s for bonus area).

There would be no need for more planets under that structure (retaining future planets for expansions), but the storylines would be more varied.

5873

Agreed. It seems like this penalizes people trying to role play. My Sith Marauder is now Light 2 but I’ve got a couple thousand Dark points too because I’m trying to role play him. But the only game mechanic result seems to be that I don’t get to use some of the better equipment as quickly if I were instead just trying to game the system.

5874

They’re “empty” because most players are still toiling away in their 20s and 30s. I went to Tatooine to get a datacron a few days ago, and it was full of people. When I was there back when I was leveling up in that zone, it also had that “empty” feeling. It’s the price you pay for rushing to the top with your first character.

5875

I don’t really mind that; I just see the way we’re doing it as “correct” and the other way being a gamey option for people who prefer the gamey option. I do object - in a kind of abstract way because it won’t affect me for ages - to the idea of maxed out LS points starting to delete DS points. I mean someone could gin up a metaphysical explanation I guess but to me it’s both poor metaphysics and a waste of the “you keep your good and bad karma both” system.

5876

At the same time some folk might see it as a chance for redemption.

5877

I don’t understand why people keep posting this stuff about the morality system.

All of the Star wars movies are pure black/white. No middle ground. No True Neutral Jedi. No only being a little dark side.

I haven’t read all of the kotor -> swtor books, but Revan (the book) almost completely throws kotor 2 (the sole star wars entity i’ve seen/played which tries to add in shades of gray to the force) away except for very minor parts. Kotor, like the movies, was also very black/white.

Kotor spoilers

Revan basically resets his force alignment from light to dark and then from dark to light. Sort of similar to changing your force alignment in swtor, but more sudden.

There is also no True Neutral ending. You can’t walk in to the background and let things sort themselves out. You either save or take over the republic.

Every game/movie has talked about the dark and light sides of the force. This is not some fantasy game where all casters cast Fireball, whether they be evil, good or true neutral. All games and movies have very clearly tried to separate out certain powers to be part of the dark or light side of the force. A number of games have based the power or availability of these on your force alignment.

The only exception (spoiler revan book)

The only exception to this is the disappointing revan book where they retcon kotor1 so that revan apparently became a light and dark jedi at the same time, with the best of both sides of the force, ignoring this did not actually happen AT ALL, nor was it talked about in the game AT ALL.

In any event, if you’re really picking choices that would match an actual realistic character and not a True Neutral one, you aren’t going to have much trouble. Yeah, you might have to do a few more runs of whatever instance or send out a bunch of diplomacy missions, but it isn’t a huge deal and is the price you pay for making the “wrong” (as dictated by your morality and faction) choice.

The only people really affected are the hardcore True Neutrals and i don’t really have a lot of sympathy for them since they complain about every game with some sort of morality system more advanced than “oh you massacred my husband, there is a 100 gold bounty on you now. would you like to buy my items at +20% cost?” IN D&D or dragon age they had a point and a place, but the star wars setting just does not support them at all.

By the way, my sith warrior has 10,000 dark/2,000 light, give or take. I can’t use dark V stuff yet since i am only dark IV due to picking some light side choices and doing some light side diplomacy missions, but I know i will get them eventually.

5878

I think the explanation is pretty obivious - once your blood system reaches a saturation point with light side midichlorians, they begin to attack and consume the dark side midichlorians.

5879

Yeah, but in metaphysical terms - and I confidently expect a Nelson Muntz laugh from the bleachers at reading Bioware morality bars metaphysically - I prefer the idea that “900 DS 1000 LS” is “slightly redeemed” and “900 DS 4000 LS” is “quite redeemed,” but in both cases redemption doesn’t mean erasure of past. So the basic system works fine for me; I just don’t like the idea that at 10k LS the DS points start going away when the same “net effect” could come from just accumulating points over the “cap.”

I’m sure there’s an opposite point of view, just my taste in the matter.

5880

luke definitely gain some DS points for blowing up 2 death stars…

all those innocent people.