Star Wars: The Old Republic

Given that heroics are populated full of strongs, elites, and champions...

Yeah, I guess I'll just not bother. Shame. I really wanted to help that dying soldier find whatever it was he wanted me to go to the Jedi Temple for.

I once wanted to turn a droid into scrap metal when he called me a coward for declining a mission because I didn't want to due to lag and not being strong enough. Fuck you, you stupid piece of scrap metal, you go and help!

AH, geeze. There's an XP penalty past level 20? That's stupid.

How hard is it to level with that? Is the penalty really harsh? Or is it manageable?

If you're free to play and not preferred or sub? It can get frustrating...

I never felt underleveled before I went preferred. Most times I ran into trouble it was because I was tackling heroic/flashpoint enemies solo.

Speaking of heroics, it's not really hard to find someone to do those with, until you get to high-level worlds like Hoth Part II or Corellia.

If you were on Ebon Hawk, Imperial, and I was currently playing I'd be happy to assist with anything as my Merc or Juggernaut. Perhaps the new expansion will finally motivate me to log on again.

edited 21st Oct '14 5:30:56 PM by montagohalcyon

The thing is, I'm trying to play it like a standard Bio Ware RPG. Which I realize is stupid. And also I always end up getting social anxiety in MM Os that's somehow worse than my real life social anxiety. So I'd just rather not do anything that involves other people. Even just fighting random groups of enemies near other players kinda makes me nervous.

Also, my account is Preferred status, but I still have the XP penalty.

It's not exactly a penalty; there's an experience bonus for subscribers. While that may seem like a semantic difference, non-subscribers are actually gaining the amount of experience people got in the past, that is to say, the amount the game was originally designed for. If you pop an experience boost or subscribe, you'll notice that you start to outlevel the content faster than you can finish a planet. If you plan on skipping group content entirely, though, you might have to do bonus series.

The only Bonus Series I've seen is the one I'm currently doing on Taris. And that seems like story content, so I was probably going to do those anyway.

Yeah, bonus series start after the homeworld. They're sort of story aftermath stuff.

I played SWTOR right around a time when they did double XP weekend after double xp weekend, so my Trooper was like 8 levels over by the time I reached Tatooine.

Heroics aren't necessary, but they're often the most accessible source for moddable gear. Get moddable armor, and buy leveled mods instead of unmoddable armor. You're going to reach a point where the pieces become obsolete. Mods let you keep the same set as long as you like.

The Bonus Series on Tatooine and Balmorra are actually sort of fun. The Bonus Series on Taris kinda sucks, if only because you are compelled to stay on Taris.

edited 22nd Oct '14 6:15:34 AM by CrimsonZephyr

Yeah, Taris kinda... sucks. Which makes sense. But stuff that makes sense isn't always fun. I do like all the KOTOR 1 references, though.

When I'm levelling alts, I tend to do class missions, the main planetary questline, and any heroics that offer orange gear, and skip everything else. I'm a subscriber, and in the Ars Technica guild on Beregen Colony (which has a good XP bonus) so even just doing that (plus the occasional on-level flashpoint and whatnot) I end up overleveled for the content. With the recent class mission XP boost thing, I've been doing just class missions and I'm still outpacing the content (but then, I if I started a brand new character and just did class missions from start to finish, that might be different).

edited 22nd Oct '14 8:39:08 AM by NativeJovian

So I'm in the Interlude of the Trooper Storyline and am already dreading the Level 50 since I'm almost there. I just have to ask, is the Bounty Hunter Storyline any good, or will it feel too repetitive?

I liked it. It's one of the more small-scale storylines if that bothers you though.

So I started with the Smuggler storyline.

Is there a specific order I should do them in if I start a new game? I kinda want to play a Bounty Hunter after this if I do make a new character, but I'm worried it'll be too similar.

Having finished BH but barely into smuggler, they're nothing alike.

Gameplay? Nothing alike; smuggler = agent, bounty hunter = trooper

Story? Can't say, like Cgnale I have a 50+ bounty hunter and smuggler partway through Taris.

The BH and companions serve as shadow archetypes to the Smuggler and company. The stories are quite similar too, but explaining how would be spoiling things.

It's amazing how I've had a single playthrough from Levels 1-50...and the only complaints I have towards this game are how enemies can sometimes become "indestructibly invisible" and how I have difficulty believing what I'm doing at times means anything in-universe because it relies a little too much on "pretending stuff happens." Of course, that's one of the drawbacks of MMORP Gs: The world can't change too much since it needs to remain the way it was for new players.

Don't do Agent first. You'll ruin the other stories because it blows the others out in comparison.

But Agent doesn't have Zash :P

Or Mako.

Zash?

Please tell me that's Dash Rendar's great great great ancestor.

Zash is from the Inquisitor storyline; she's the player character's master after you get off Korriban.