Well I'm a little spoiled. I'm a huge fan of the Witcher series having read all the books while getting introduced to TW3. The romance (with Yen at least) there felt really deep since it was rooted in decades of an on again/off again romantic relationship from the novels. Most of the romance=marriage paths in SWTOR seem very rushed in relation to that game and my personal life experience (never was a love at first sight, it had to build and the dialog options are no where close to the things my wife and I say or said to each other). So I guess I just like the hookups and think most if not all the actual romance=marriage options are bad... So if they write a "sexual tension while trying to kill each other, leads to banging one out on the eternal throne" option, I may be interested for a female character. If I ever let Arcann live that is.

I agree it's great as a catch up mechanic sub-300. It's pretty overtuned to be getting that many crates at rank 300 with potential for BiS from doing dailies though. And yes, I think PVPers need to go back to pre-5.0 PVP gearing all together.

Fair enough. If they think they're getting enough bang (pun intended) for their development buck it makes sense. But this will not be content I ever experience, but maybe watch a video to see if it is as awful as I'm imagining.

I cannot imagine this not being the worst written romance option in any game ever. Unless you just bang one out on the eternal throne from all the built up sexual tension and move on. That would be tolerable. But romance/marriage?

What? How are they going to write a compeling "romance" for Arcann? Like, I know you've been trying to kill me, but I've been in love with you the whole time? Or like, all this sexual tension that built up while trying to kill each other and you bang one out on the eternal throne and go your separate ways? Guess it doesn't matter to me since he or anyone in his family won't survive any playthrough if I ever do a rerun.

I think the Technician's shotgun is a little overtuned. As infiltration it does ~85 damage to me in one GCD (~45k initial hit and two follow up ticks for ~20k each, all within 1.5 sec according to starparse). Maybe if the bleed ticks were spread out and cleanseable, or if there's a mechanic I've missed to force that attack on the tank (assuming it's K/E damage) it would be easier. But 90k damage in 1.5 secs when there is other damage from the assassin and possibly turrets is pretty hefty.

I thought the Guardians were always tauntable. Are they developing a NiM version and this change slipped through to Vet in the recent patch? (Hello Tyrans.) As far as exploding behind Tyth, it's probably a hit box issue. The add's hitbox extends in front of Tyth, and then his cone kills the add.

The boost applies to the base CXP reward. So if a quest give 1000, the 2xCXP gives another 1000, and the 100% CXP boost gives another 1000. Total 3000. I don't know where other things factor in like D/L victory (just base or base plus boosts) or legacy bonuses (again just base or base plus boost).

Wow good to see. A little copy/paste error when describing operations since it has a, um, solo mode heading describing story mode.

Do any of these achievements hand out cartel coins? If not I don't care if people win trade to get them.

--- Dread Master Styrak referring to patch 5.4a 2nd place was "You cannot play, you are not allowed to play" -- Corruptor Zero Any other good in game commentary that applies to today? Btw, I understand stuff happens and don't care too much. Mind was just wondering while eating lunch.

Still too soon Eric, still too soon.

The only thing I didn't enjoy was the significant cost in both credits and shards to do the missions. Maybe a one-time grind to unlock would have been fine, but having to buy the stuff every time was too much for me personally.

Do you even play this game?

The game is titled Star Wars The Old Republic.

Clear your cache folks.

I'm not really a stronghold decorating guy, and have spent all my tokens on the reusable biochem stuff so far, but the Umbara train should be the start of a nice theme in new strongholds. Basically the idea of conquering something in the story, and taking it over as a stronghold is great. Say for example we raid the Dread Master's palace. After defeating them you get your very own Dread Palace stronghold ! The location on Oricon would have been conveniently located near daily areas and Operations entrances. I'm not suggesting rehashing Oricon, but wherever you're planning the next major story area, hopefully with some dailies and operation/flashpoint entrances, consider a stronghold being a reward.

Give me a break. Criticize them for not really understanding their engine (I won't because I'm not a game developer), but do you really expect developers to run through literally thousands of hours of old content for every patch to make sure there aren't any unintended bugs? And for those on the PTS I would prefer they focus on identifying bugs in the new content, not go around running Oricon dailies to see if new bugs pop up in random places.

And it felt amazing. Keep the daily CXP for those rank < 300 as a catch up mechanic. Nice to run around with folks again after 2 years.

Guess this means Jedi Covenant republic side is really dead (or uninformed). I haven't seen double digits in the only PVE instance since the bug happened. Anyway, is there anyway to keep the extremely high CXP for those <300, but nerf it back once they reach 300? That would introduce a catch up mechanic, but keep the rate of 248 gear gain how it is currently designed. I'd run Ops on my main (once at 300) then dailies on an alt instead of just logging out because the grind is depressing.

If given an unlimited budget I wouldn't care. It's all opportunity costs.

The main issue is gear progression. In the 2.X cycle you had 168 gear drop from HM TFB/SNV, which was sufficient to do HM DF/DP by most groups. HM DF/DP dropped 180 gear. NiM TFB/SNV dropped 174 gear and was a bonus to that community, but not required to get into the next HM ops. Now what do we have? Most HM ops drop 242 gear. So the question is whether Tyth and A&E are tuned such that most groups can clear it in 242 gear? If not you need to be either a) a NiM raider or b) grind GC up to 300 and hope to start getting 246/248 gear. I do not feel many groups could clear the new HM bosses in no more than 242 gear. It's too late but Tier 4 should never have been added to GC, and the new bosses tuned slightly lower to account for max 242 gear. And NiM shouldn't drop stat gear, just unique decos, mounts, titles, etc.

If something could be implemented requiring very few resources, like a consumable that when activated advances the story I don't care. But spending resources to create a solo Dread Masters fight in FP style is not something I want. It kinda worked for Revan since it's really you and 7 NPCs, but otherwise that solo fight is the worst part of 3.0. They shouldn't have developed the fight but instead just have you fly to that spot and talk to a Revan other people defeated. Back to DMs: You don't even have to do the entire operation. Many groups farm CXP by doing final boss lockouts (note this doesn't work for SnV, since you have to kill the last two for the story). So one really just has to be prepared for two boss fights, that take at most 15 minutes and look or ask for groups with a final boss lockout. Granted those two are the most complex in their respective instances, but it's just two.

They have flags in the intro to Oricon based on whether you've completed SnV. If you haven't, the dialog is something like "when the Republic struck down Styrak" not "when you struck down Styrak."

None of the cutscenes within the operation have any dialog choices. They're usually just bosses taunting you and stuff. Some good taunting though.