My 4 favorite things from the expansion

[Darkbloom]

Hi Everyone,

 

It seems like things have stabilized since the expansion was released. So I thought I would write about the 4 things I really liked from the expansion. Maybe that will be useful to the team at Bioware.

 

1. The new Manaan area.

 

OK, this is the sort of scenery I've been wanting to be able to play through since the game was released. It is so atmospheric that I really feel like I am in a movie. I'm looking forward to the new Manaan daily area, and I don't remember ever being excited about a daily area in any MMO. (Although, Oricon and Ossus turned out to be great once they were released. But I wasn't anticipating those.)

 

Request: Any chance we might be able to use the night-time Manaan background in our current stronghold?

 

2. GSF pops immediately whenever I log on.

 

Now I don't log on at all hours, but whenever I log on, if I want to play GSF, I can. And usually with very little to no wait time. I am finally, after months and months and months, close to the upper edge of average at GSF. It's now my favorite part of the game, despite the grueling learning curve. Not sure why everyone is playing so much, but for me it's that I can get one character per day through conquest by doing a few GSF matches.

 

Request: Any chance we can get a bare bones pve GSF mode? I'm talking about using the same maps, and just having targets (preferably moving, but even stationary would be fine.) I want a mode where I can learn the basics of how to play new ships without screwing over my team.

 

3. Galactic Seasons 2

 

This was pretty much exactly what I was hoping Galactic Seasons would be when I first mentioned the idea. A massive improvement over Season 1. I love that you included all sorts of past content, like the GSI quests. I also use a lot of the weapon rewards on several of my characters. The progression through the levels seemed smooth and appropriate to how much I was playing. I did a lot of content I haven't done in years, and never felt like I "had" to do some boring part of the game.

 

Request: The automatically granted rewards this time around were cooler, but we still need better rewards to purchase with the tokens. Any chance we could get companions that are currently only available to one class (like Vector and Nadia) to purchase?

 

4. Loadouts and being able to play a second class on each character.

 

These have revived the game for many of my alts who had cool stories that I had created for them, but I didn't necessarily like playing the class. And combined with loadouts, I can't imagine how I used to play the game without these two new features. They are great.

 

Request: I see that you are addressing class balance, and that was what I was going to request. Instead, I'll request something that other people always ask for. I understand why you don't want people to be able to switch classes in pvp and NM operations. But I feel like we should be able to switch pretty much anywhere else in game.

 

Alright, there you go. These are my four favorite things from the expansion. Take care of yourselves, everyone.

[Samcuu]

Everyone piles on the devs and bioware these days but I like ur post because they did make some good changes in 7.0. The issue they had was calling it an expansion and hyping up what is basically a patch. A big thing was taking away stuns from pvp. Now ppl hate on roots cuz its a tool players can use in pvp but less stun lock rofl stomping is a welcome change as well that I'd add to ur list.

[Ardrossan]

My four favorite things:

 

1) Kill sharing: It's a major QoL upgrade not to have to group (and risk getting declined) whenever you attack mobs needed for heroics, WBs etc.

 

2) I agree, GS was much improved. No more kill x number of bugs on tatooine. Generally I had no problem doing all the weeklies without feeling like I was doing something other than what I wanted to do.

 

3) Loadouts aren't alignment based. I suspect this owes more to rushing it out before it was ready, but I appreciate that I can make an Inquisitor Sentinel in character creation rather than wait until I reach an arbitrary LS rank.

 

4) post kotfe companions influence fixed: All the returnees you get in kotfe and after used to not talk and not gain influence from pre-SoR content. This has mostly been fixed though it still crops up a bit. It was a major reason for me not to skip to Ossus on many of my toons.

[phalczen]

1. I do like Loadouts, and more specifically I like that I can swap gear and utility choices while queued as long as I don't change disciplines.
   
2. I do like most of the changes that Galactic Seasons 2 brought, compared to Season 1, especially the short story with
    
   its connection to the Season 1 companion
    
   
3. I do like weapons in outfit designer.
   
4. I do like shared kill credit.
   

 

Still:

1. Combat styles did little for me in terms of increasing my enjoyment. I did like the fact that I could change some of my Light-aligned Sith characters to use Jedi powers instead of Sith powers, but it doesn't really change how I play the character. For all my tech characters, or Light-aligned Republic Force users, all it really does is facilitate optimizing the gear drops from boxes to meet certain stat distributions like for accuracy or alacrity.
   
2. Even though I completed 100% Seasons achievements on my server, I sympathize with the folks who missed out because they didn't read the achievements. I think better visibility of these kinds of features at the outset of the season is warranted. I am a little disappointed that I really didn't have the time to work on a character on a second server, which isn't Bioware's fault per se but they clearly intended for this to be harder and they achieved that goal.
   
3. We had to wait 2.5 months for weapons in outfitter to be launched. I realize when it finally launched, it was pretty bug free, but this was a flagship feature talked about Summer 2021 and was more than 4 months late.
   
4. The deficiency with shared kill credit is that if the target NPCs drop mission items, they don't drop for all the players and coupled with unfixed long respawn timers (I'm looking at you, "Face Merchants!"), it's still a serious issue.
   

 

I also appreciate short wait times for GSF.

 

However, I'd gladly give all five of those things back if my guild hadn't died because of 7.0.

[Thunderisaclone]

I have only run though the new story area twice, once on each faction. GS was the reason for this, as to get points for GS it was just better to do other activities. Now GS is over I plain to put more characters though it.

 

I liked the story on both sides for the most part.

 

I have made a few new characters with the other class skills such as a Smuggler Merc, but not bothered giving any of my characters a second class skill. So all in all neither for or against this now (did not care for it much when announced) .

 

The

 

Group shared hits, or as I call it group assault, was a lot better in game then it read on paper. Really has helped in some heroic areas.

 

GS, was OK but the companion will only be used with certain classes by me. Mainly due to the fact I like my companion to look as part of the team, So he just does not fit my Commando or Merc.

Still it was nice to get the companions I did want from the GS vender on fleet.

 

 

 

The Bad

Mainly gear, looks awful cannot be modified, and yet another nail to add in the death of crafting. I still make dyes from pre 7.0 and war supplies and well that's it, nothing else.

 

The rep GS vender was pointless on Nar Shaddaa!

 

Was not pleased about the loss of need for the holotrainers, as I had brought and unlocked account wide, these which are now pointless and worthless not to mention the free one from the anniversary vender. I paid real money for the cartel ones. You cannot sell items for real money then remove there need, that is totally unacceptable!

 

The total removal of the social vender/system. Social points were a part of the daily log in rewards. So as it turns out was not a reward at all. You really did not think that though BW. Same as above, not really acceptable to do this.

 

Well that's my two cents worth on 7.0

Edited July 9, 2022 by Thunderisaclone

[Darkbloom]

Everyone piles on the devs and bioware these days but I like ur post because they did make some good changes in 7.0. The issue they had was calling it an expansion and hyping up what is basically a patch. A big thing was taking away stuns from pvp. Now ppl hate on roots cuz its a tool players can use in pvp but less stun lock rofl stomping is a welcome change as well that I'd add to ur list.

 

Yeah I completely agree with this. I totally forgot how much this has helped pvp, because I'm now used to it.

 

I also agree with those mentioning that shared kills have been a bigger upgrade than I thought they would be. When they first announced it, I was like, "who cares?" But actually, it improves my experience more than I expected. And it reduces toxicity.

 

Now I do have many complaints about 7.0, but I've written about those extensively elsewhere. My original post was not meant as praise or condemnation of the expansion. I just thought maybe the devs would find it useful to find out what aspects of the expansion I appreciate.